The Wrong Side of Night
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb

​
Outside my window a street cleaner sweeps,
its mechanical rhythm brushing dawn’s dark side
into the antechamber of waking. Dreams
are replaced by slow-moving light
pulsing upon bedroom curtains, familiar shapes
appearing on the edge of each flash;
some having been with me since birth,
one—his arm rests across my belly--
since last night,
a time which was known
by what was being said,
not who said it,
and by how many layers of myself
I unwrapped and cast off the bridge
suspended between then and morning,
the laces of lies, shrouds of uncertainty, fears
when a self elusive becomes the self concrete,
a time of night when life became
more than watching a flower girl,
distorted through a wine glass,
float in the dimness from table to table,
and a man’s shadowed profile
invited contemplation; had he come to dance
or to hunt?  Now, in illumination
and silence, the distance from last night
is apparent; I am aware
how heavy his arm feels upon my belly
and that he is awake.