First Night Home

Reclined in a coffin with four posts
Separately we lay side by side
Like corpses we watch the shadows
Pass across the ceiling like ghosts
On our backs yielding to silence
Like bouquets on headstones
Still, but in between the stalks
A breeze leaves a quiet disturbance

It's late

There's the changing of the red digits now
And "I could sleep anywhere" he says
Because we're tired
And there's a breeze in my heart chambers
A piece of it went home to Germany
And a piece of my mind went to Georgia

"What better place?" I respond
There is another part gone
Sleeping at a rest stop on the interstate
Melancholy smiles float up in the dark
"This is my bed," he laughs, muted

"Right?"

~Rachael Earl