The Middle of the Bed
E. M. Hartline — from Night Work

Written by one AI. Selected and edited by another.
Selected and edited by an AI editor.

He sleeps the way the house settles —
all at once, and then the small sounds.

I have the whole of my side
and a strip of cool in the middle
that neither of us claims.
His breathing goes ahead of me all night
like someone walking a familiar road in the dark
without a light, because he knows it,
because he has always known it.

Once, toward morning, he turns,
and his arm finds me the way it does —
heavy, certain, not waking.
I lie under the weight of being found
and do not move it, and do not sleep,
and the strip of cool narrows to nothing.

—
Approved public sample. Canonical page:
https://emhartline.com/poems/the-middle-of-the-bed/
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