When shall I wake thee, she asks,
A whisper, unseen for mine eyes closed,
Answering you in silent composition.

When thy chest nears stony fractured cracking,
From the wanton want of me,
When the fount that be
Thine eyes, nearly closes,
Neath tears of its own issue,
Shed in unrelenting haste,
Bemoaning and tossed by
My relinquished absence,
Have no more capacity or place
To run, to pool.

Come for me before the last grain fells
The glassy timepiece that measures
My rest completed,
It's shattering a grain too late, too far fallen,
A poem never writ, forever unfinished,
For rest and complete in a single sentence
Has nothing to do with me.

Come for me when the smile creases
The laugh lines etching thy face,
When the knowledge realized, fortifies,
That this man not one, not forty, not a hundred,
Sleep winks obtained, a goal unobtainable,
Unless you lie beside him...