Upon coming home to an empty house

Three months in;

wife and baby out

of town for the first

time and, at last,

a chance to get some rest

after this endless drain. 

But was it ever this quiet

before? Without the white noise

machine muffling the cries

and sighs and sleeping laughs?

I now stumble without the night light.

The room had never been this dark. 

Crawling into a bed devoid 

of competition, I stretch full

out. I roll over until I’ve found 

the coveted middle, but end up lost

in the cold, cotton endless;

wistful for the bodies and edges

by which I have come to measure myself.