The Blanket Is Too Small for Both of Us

The bunk is narrower
than the word bed would suggest,
and the blanket is a rumour of a blanket…
grey, thin,
printed with the name of a railway
neither of us can pronounce.

You give me most of it.

You do it without announcement,
so I only find out
twenty minutes later,
when I put a hand back
and feel the cold along your spine
where the wool has stopped.

I say your name.

You say, it's fine,
in the voice you use
when it is not fine
and you have already decided.

Outside, a country
I have never been to
goes by in the dark.
A station with nobody in it.
A lit window on a hill.

In my coat pocket,
a coin from the ticket machine.
I have been holding it since Zurich.
It has been warm for hours.

And now here you are.
Close enough that I keep forgetting
to be afraid.

My hands don't know that yet.

They come up between us,
braced,
for nothing,
for no one,
for a thing that isn't coming.

You take one.

You turn it over.
You put your thumb
in the middle of my palm…
not pressing,
just resting,
where the ache is,

the way you'd hold something
you had gone a long way
to get back.

Still cold?

Still cold.

Come here, then.

Not pulling.
Not claiming.
Just the wool lifted,
and held open,
and the cold coming in
the whole time
he waits.

Until I move.

Words from the Poet

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If this piece lingered with you, these two posts might be lovely to read next.