A poem by Nicholas Laughlin
Published in
The Strange Years of My
Life
and
previously in Almost Island, Winter
2011
Mercy on My Small Husband
Mercy on my small
husband.
When he sleeps bare five hours a night
wrapped in paper like an accident,
like an insect itching serifs inside an envelope.
He sleeps knowing I am nowhere near.
He sleeps near I know not where.
My small husband is an impossible sleeper.
Sleep is not impossible.
I cough and scrabble my blanket of fur,
my bed of cold white zinc.
And above me is all the clean glass air, safe from echoes.
Unmercied, I am bound in my own veins.
I keep my watch like a leftover promise,
staring at Orion’s crotch,
at the stumbling of the blind bull.
No one will surprise my small husband,
not me.