Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep       Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...

an etherial whiteness 

that covers and disguises

as a strip of white frosted glass 

Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,

I am stopped by two women

Lavender seeps. I expect my limbs to leaden, lead the body down through sheet, mattress-cover, into the machinery of sleep where other lives exist.

The Still Face Experiment 

You must have seen that Youtube clip 

where a mother lets her face go dead. 

Her toddler carries on burbling for twenty to thirty seconds until she realises there is nothing coming back to her. 

After you died,
someone asked:
What was it like
in those final sixteen days
waiting for your son to die?

I imagine returning to the house.
Furniture is piled up in the rain—
the ideas that won’t fit.

I used to dial your number to hear your voice. I would hold the receiver for a long time as if your voice was trapped inside . . .