Poem: January 4, 2020

Poem Before Bed

Hello, dear sleep.
I welcome you tonight,
every night the same.

I am grateful to you
for this dark shifting,
this folding inward
to the open other,

the slow of it.

I am grateful for
your open gate and
the widening spaces
between my atoms,
this form of fading.

My eyes are grateful
and the muscles in my neck.

My lungs and legs
appreciate your expanses

and the softening of
daylight's surfaces,
the graying of the colors,

I invite you in,
remaker, release,
and rising tide.

I hide myself inside
your flesh

and accept my rest,
subtracted from hard edges
and falling farther away.