the outer garments where he lay

it is night
and I am in the children's room
watching their
breathing
coriolis
curl
around
thoughts
images
memories
in their
den of dream

a nostril
imperceptibly flares
where this room
enters
in
and
is returned
through the cavern of mouth

outside
sleet comes aslant
in the dark
wind
window
spattering
at the threshold
of my retreat
from the day's
partings

and I am risen
warm and awake
to the weather outside

and I am a vision
in my children's room
trying to catch the point
in their sleep
between
the inbreath of the world
and
the out-breath of their imaginings

what they take
what they give back

out there
beyond these walls
half a world slumbers
lost
in the gyrations
of the planet

half the world
lost
in tropics
of thought;

back in my own bed
I think of his
dead weight
laid out
there in the night
fully of the room
and nothing else

yet we were
there
alongside him
taking the air
into
these inner realms
where we keep him,
these outer garments
where he lay.