The Ritual of Sleep

Your freckled arm
binding me to you
snug as a wing,
keeping me from harried flight or fidgeting.

Your utter stillness.
Limbs entwined in a tangle of warmth.
The drama of the open window,
the right temperature a constant tease.

You tell me gleefully when I snore,
record me and play it back
months later when I least expect it,
regaling me with tales of my nightly activities:

I laugh maniacally, I talk, largely gibberish,
I upend the quilt or kick you, painfully.
My night self is a naughty imp it seems,
capable of violence and mayhem.

And what of the nights without you?
Calm, luxuriating in space and freedom, for a time,
then the surge of longing
for your big bear body and our ritual of sleep.