Night Visitor

Shortly after midnight
soft footfalls
shatter silent slumberings…
shaking quickly awake,
cobwebs of dread
flow with every
thundering
heart beat.
groggily I peer through
sleep crusted eyes
as
her hair,
tangled and spilling
everywhere…
She pads to the
foot of our bed
shadows casting
long
and ominous…
bad dreams recounted,
replacing
sleep with
assurances of sunrise
and what
was two
in
a
bed
becomes two and a half,
with
one tossing
and turning
checking the closets
with continued
studied gaze…

some day soon
all of this
will end
and I will miss
her
footfalls
and the sweet
refrains of assurances
late at night
because the sunrise
is coming soon.