Still Life

I watch you sleeping there,
so pale against the stark white sheet,
your long hair, a fine, light brown
spreading over the pillow's edge.

Night has arrived and peopled this plain room
with crisp shadows.
From this breeze that moves
but does not cool,
the drapes seem to be in flight,
their nondescript design unraveling
against the dark walls.

I light a candle and the glow flickers and dances
across your lovely face.

For a moment, I'm remembering your eyes,
very blue, dark, intense,
like shimmering crude diamonds
mined from the bitter earth.

Softly you breathe,
the air rising gently
from your nostrils,
your head resting against the pillow,
your hand relaxing on your abdomen,
rising, falling, like a gentle wave.
Your other hand is at your side
and the fingers are raised, poised,
and my eyes stare gravely
at the ring you wear.
It is strangely chipped, scratched,
but even in its imperfection,
it has a certain affinity for your hand.

It will rain soon and
the sound will rouse you
and you will see me sitting here,
calm, in control,
alert as a sentry on guard
at a certain point of passage and,
even if you would awaken abruptly
and see me gazing at you in silence,
you would instantly remember me
from another time,
a time marked by
troubling dreams enfolding endlessly,
dreams set in this same stifling, airless house
where we now wait together,
wait for the rain to begin,
soaking the drapes,
leaping in fury,
twisting, hiding, submitting,
surrendering to the bleak clear vision
of an open sky.

I observe you now in repose,
as if you were a photograph,
frozen, static, captured in a second,
without past or future, just you there,
leaving me here at your side,
peering at the bed, lifting my eyes,
struggling to see you in this hollow room.

With tears blinding, I rise, stumble, sob,
kiss the cold stone floor and watch you
resting there, so pale, so terribly pale,
and still, so very still,
against the stark white sheet.

Vernon Waring

Vernon Waring has been a newspaper reporter, feature editor, and public relations account executive. He is currently employed in the quality control department of a Philadelphia printing company. His poetry has appeared in The Writer, The Iconoclast, the Alabama School of Fine Arts Poetry Quarterly, the Midwestern University Quarterly, New Dimensions, Anthology, the South Street Star, MAYA, and the Stylus. His work has also been featured on NPR-sponsored Prairie Home Companion web site. His light verse has been published in the Saturday Evening Post and the Philadelphia Daily News.
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