Wake

teeter-totter on the edge of sleep
until i slip and fall
back into bed as morning's greying light
pulls my heavy eyelids
open,
like my gasping mouth that's
hauling air inside to soothe
reality's cold ache;

reach back for floating fragments
from the fringes of a dream,
still warm
and full of hope that crushes
all the more as morning's greying light
pulls the glowing strands
away,
leaving me so that
i cannot help but tremble with
the ache of cold reality--

( i saw you well
  i saw you smile
  i saw your body whole,
  that you had food and clothes
  and life and health and joy,
  i saw you love
  i saw you smile
  i saw you well )

--clench my sheets around my fists
and twist them to my eyes
i will not cry.

rise because i must,
to toil with these hands
until they ache,
to war against the cold and darkness
clinging heavy to this world,

remembering that
morning's greying light will
one day turn
to gold.