Knowns

When the alarm rang, it was still night. I gathered things and fell down the hill to the subway, and the streets were empty. Mornings are not my thing, but for a two-dollar train ticket, I was willing to go. For a moment's respite, I would sacrifice a hundred mornings, after all.

The sun rose quietly over the city of my childhood as the train rolled in. Past the lake where we'd swim on late drunk nights before heading home. Over the bridge past that apartment house where we went that one New Year's Eve that was the coldest in history, and I still remember your hands inside my shirt. The sun lit up the church steeple, the river delta, the town square. I didn't fear the city today. I have realized no one remembers my face, I am safe. And it's a pretty enough place, for a stranger.

Later, I sat with that child in my arms as she fell asleep, and I had gotten exactly what I came for. Just a day, a moment's rest. Where there is no Stockholm, no New York, no uncertainty, no poverty, no weary limbs. There is only a baby as dear as were she your own blood, a season that follows tradition to a t, and a world where nothing surprises, nothing alarms. It is harmless, it is safe. It is everything I've left behind.

How the sleep, tonight, will be sweet.