Ash

I love to see the word of last night’s sleep

spelt out in the wrinkles of our bed.

We shape a sound by lying back to back

and curling round our spines until they meet.

A sound like shingle, shushed by drowsy waves

or the graft of A with E in Curriculum Vitæ.

As if we wrote the grapheme known as Ash

and spoke a tree awake by saying our breath.

The word we make is warm in the soft dark, 

smooth as hands that wander along a spine,

and snug as upturned boats drawn up the beach

above the reach of spring tides overnight.