I only need to see
but routinely ignore
the empty sheets of morning

in that moment, perhaps a moment, something I usually do not think about on the way out the door, or maybe try not to anymore, but did this morning, how usually, how used to, I might find you there, and stare, watch you sleep, laid out, jumbled, or curled up in bundles, my love, your night black hair, with a few grays, even back then,  in our twenties, how long has this been an empty bed, nothing between the sheets when I leave, the empty sheets of morning are all that greet me, how I have grown accustomed to the notion, a place once inhabited by two, entwined devotion, now just an island, I do not recall even arriving here, just surviving here, but here I am and here I’ve been, so long now… so damn long now… is this to be my end? these empty sheets that greet me every morning since.