Making ends meet

I remember when we still slept, when afternoon stretched away into the distance like the flat concrete of airport runways.  We do not sleep now.  Our hours are not worth enough that we can spend them on non essentials.

“Where is the soap?” When I try to talk to you my head is thick like a switch with gummy contacts.

When we are in the tiny flat together, when the children are finally asleep, when we finally make love the fatigue makes us both selfish.  My hands feel wrapped with string when I touch you, swollen as if I had been pulling in nets cut by salt spray.  The convulsions jerk me around as if I am filled with wires being pulled.  There is never enough time to bathe.

The other day I saw your dead mother and felt my body flush with warmth.  This lack of sleep pushes dreams and reality together.  

“I’m sure the children plot against us,” you say.  I grunt, too tired to speak, an overloaded machine whirring and useless.

All of this work corrodes our beautiful, perfect selves until by doing the right thing, every day I betray us.  

Even together we miss each other.