We are like two elderly cats sleeping together from
habit and the perception of heat, your
snoring using me as a scratching post
and my irritation as punctual as the moon.

Each year we sink into darker waters, slowly
turned to stone by the lighted reflected from the lunar face.

Your scalp is marble now, the veins pale blue
the strands of hair like lichen struggling to grow, and
my poor body is a bas relief gone askew, sculpted
by some mad man. But

Some times when I lay, arms
folded across my deflated breasts, bearing
a grudge against your slumbering, the moonlight
hits you just right -- a star
lights up your right brow where the scar
of a childhood accident brightens your face.
Your lips relax into a long forgotten smile;
your scalp gleams with the radiance of a burning nova.

And I reach out to touch
your countenance, this
sad habit of remembering broken
by the shuddering intact of your breath
and the sudden slackness
of your skin.