Immersed

The light in our room is dim,
an undersea 
          soft saturation
so you might soon 
                  please sleep.

This is our new 
house, a place
         for new 
beginnings, to shed sadness
like snake's skin, 
like snow melt.

This is not 
the house
you came home to, round-eyed,
reddened baby. This is not

     the room of your first
     seizure, your first
     birthday when the weight

of your compromised life
lay heavy on my heart, 
                       heavy
on our hope. You are not

the child I imagined,
not the child I wanted, 
          and sometimes
not 
the child I want.

This new room is ours, 
broad
expanse of windows, morning light,
we two love long, lazy days
lounging 
on our shared bed.
It is our safe place.
          "Olly, olly oxen free!" 
This marriage

bed is now a place to parent
in my own soft way.

(You may disapprove.
You will disapprove.) But

I am tired. 
Ten years and I 
imagine sleeping 

and seizing
descend similarly, stifling, static.

You grab my hand now, 
                     pull it
toward your chest, as you cross
the threshold, unwilling

I am your link
to the awake world. I watch you
                                transform, 
again a baby--pink
lips and starfish hands
curl, flex.

I lay beside you,           holding
my breath, and watch
you traverse the nocturnal

waves

that carry you from awake--

          "up, up" you say
          "no tired" you learn to say

to sleep, the snags and snaps
that trip your tricky brain.

But tonight you slide smoothly
into somnolent dreamscapes.

Your long legs 
        bisect the bed,
a little boy's legs now,
thick at the thigh, 
no baby. But then you 
        draw those legs in,
a turtle hatchling, furled,
you make room
again
for me.

That years' long 
fear manifests again, 
fear like a fizz 
in my stomach,
you might never wake and I

will be left in the shallows,
                             no air
                             no air
your dolphin laugh echoing
like a lost recording, 
just so much oceanic static
no proof

     I once heard what I heard 
     and saw what I saw.

              ("You wouldn't believe!") 

I once loved a love
both rare and roaring.