Sleeper

She took his hand, all limp with sleep, and wrapped it across her waist. His eyes fluttered beneath their lids, REM sleep under way. She felt his dreams within the pulse of his slight wrist. Delicately laced with the fading scars of boyhood, the blue-hued veins carried on. What was he dreaming? Was she there, somewhere in his subconscious, stroking his forehead or singing radio songs? He was bigger then her, but the urge to sing lullabies was overwhelming, and rose in her throat until they softly spilled over in frothy Russian. Lullabies worked all on ages, somehow the calm was never antiquated, the charm never outgrown. The cars on the street below made a somber harmony, never ceasing in their rumble over the potholed avenues. Buses crawling like centipedes, glowing and empty on the lost weeknight. Sirens started many blocks away, echoing off the buildings and fire escapes for the entire length of Manhattan. Dissolving into the song of old, she drifted temporarily between sleep and wakefulness, a blissful loss of body. The weight of his hand not enough to keep her down, and she watched their little breathing bodies from the ceiling. A balloon for a few suspended moments, before a tremor in his fingers shook her into this world, and back into this bed. The sheets were cool to the touch, the wind still settling into them for the night- a black cat's small feet weaving their way between their bodies. Despite the calm, she shook like sails in a storm. The song had drifted away, with a yawn, and was now out roaming the corner stores. There was not enough here yet to sleep, but too much yet, so that her eyelids hung heavy. Was this the end? Always, there was a close point when the green traffic light reflected onto the bedroom walls, and was this the omen she needed? Green- good, steady, go. She held his tepid hand, tracing the way he lived with her pale bone fingers. Some things have no end. Like the mirrors lining the walls behind the bakery counter, they never ended, desserts lined up forever, upon each other. You could go there and drink coffee and lose yourself in the endless mirrors. This was sweet enough, the spring night with new, verdant leaves coming to being on the trees in all the parks. This, his thin wrist in her trembling fingers, scars, tattoo up the arm. Her own ratted friendship bracelets, clinging into the new days- mementos from the old life. He would twist them as they sat on the subway, coming home each night. This was different, the way he slept with abandon, the way she could sing to him, he didn't wake and stare at her in dreamy confusion. He let the fine lines of his past show, wasn't shy in letting her find the path he'd wandered to her upon. She would let her spider veins grow in, and he would let his scars fade, and they would still stand at the sink to wash dishes every evening. This much she felt confident in. In the same way the cars never stopped rattling over the manholes and trash of the streets, so they would never have to sleep apart. The green traffic lights soothed her, and the ancient Russian song came again into her lungs, whispering out and entangling in his hair. This was the end- of searching. And now, there was enough- there was the beautiful breeze of the early morning, the promise of longer days. There was the promise of his knee knocking hers as the subway clambered through the dark. The promise of soap suds in the sink and enough dishes for two people. Two pairs of shoes resting by the door. She stopped fighting, and the in-between space feathered out. Somewhere, Sirens wailed a melody like waves.