My boy is sleeping now, his warm breath
lapping on my chest. I shift

on concrete, pull the blanket up around our necks,
my feet away from cold steel rails

that stretch into a deeper black than here.
Nothing to tell the night from day

except the stilted sway of sleep,
the hush of intimacies, and in the distance

a mother's voice riding the tide:
bye baby bunting, daddy’s gone a hunting…

There's comfort in these strangers,
pressed together like hands in prayer

below the streets of London. I rock
the plumb weight in my arms

and think of planes whining                                                       
through the shell-shocked city sky:

within each cockpit, a young man
with a girl back home, in whose plumpness

he longs to sink, to dream
of days as bright and rare as oranges.

(from my collection 'To Know Bedrock', published by Pindrop Press)

Copyright © Sharon Black 2011