Bad Dreams
Tonight I am a broken stick
and you stumble across my path
in restlessness
Each hour you have awakened me
to ask if I was sleeping and how well
and how could I, when you were
so lonely, but all I did was sleep
It was a torment for you,
the way I disappeared just when
you needed me to speak,
to touch away a memory or a moment
you were not happy to recall
Each time, magnanimous, you
suggest I go to bed,
only to decide, there is something
too quiet, a waiting room where you might
be called back any moment,
with no one there to brace you
for some negative verdict,
which perversely, the doctor will call,
positive.