The bed is empty again.
Warmth settles in the void
now reclaimed
by neatly tucked sheet corners
and a fading memory in the mattress.
A wayward dream of soft snores
begging to come true

One pillow
recovering from a restless night,
the other
frozen like marble.
Too foreign to be disturbed.
Too real to be dismissed.
Too distant to be admired

My dad shouted up that the
Space Lab was passing overhead in
The next few minutes

I put on my adidas and a hoodie
And stood in the snow and mud
Of the front yard trying to find the
Passing station as it traveled past
Hundreds of miles up

It was more excited than I had seen
My father in a long time
And I was glad to be out there with him

We almost missed it
But I caught it in the chalky
Luminescence of the moon
It glided past easily
And my father shouted excitedly
I stared straight up and took all the air
Into my lungs between the passing station
And my body on the ground

Until it was lost
In the sanguine of the night sky
Like my father's excitement
It passed too quickly

And we ventured back inside
To watch TV in separate rooms