each evening
before twilight
before starlight
before the yellow houses
pull their shutters
into themselves

I remember my own
small death
in green and orange
and ash white pills
each beautiful
each perfect
each swaddling my senses
in cotton batting
and antiseptic truth
****** truth

I have died
these many familiar times
this comfort
pulls my life about me
with sleepy fingers
like a warm blanket
and rocks me
with soft lullabies

no mother could
ever be so diligent
so real
so mine

one
two
buckle my shoe

twenty years
of little deaths
have left me
silent and barren
as Mother Sleep
no longer waits for me
drawing a tepid bath
but instead
opens her starched white uniform
and smothers me in her ample arms.