Matthew the Raven Wants to Know

I need a different bed. Three years ago, this mattress on plywood was a temporary arrangement. The blankets all cast-offs, binding coming off, the electric blanket that’s old and smells funny but I’m afraid to wash it because I’m not sure what will happen to it if I did, but that I need on cold nights or I will never get warm.

But I continue to think of it, like most aspects of my day-to-day life, to be temporary.  

I know I've woken up to a dream, but I'm still surprised to feel the warmth of someone behind me.  A weight across my waist that I realise is an arm.  It's curious that I should know what this feels like, because I was never in this position in my marriage.  He had to sleep facing the door, and he didn't want his arm to fall asleep, and it was too much trouble.  So I slept behind, until the last couple years when he wouldn't let me touch him.  It takes a greater awareness than I had to consider that and think, "someone who only lets you touch him when there's an orifice involved might think of you much, much differently than you think of yourself."  

So now that I'm here, I don't want to move, because I know I don't have control over this and, and maybe I'll wake up, or the dream will shift or whoever this is will move and I want this as long as I'm allowed to keep it.  "Wake up," a voice at my ear.  "No."  

The hand at the end of the arm finds mine, a touch that's at least six years old.  But I know it's not his hand, and I wonder who this is.  "Wake up," he says, "we've got art to make."  Whose voice?  Whose hand?  Who cares this much?  

And I roll over to open my eyes, except I open them for real, straight in to the light of the morning and whoever he was, he's gone.  

It's a silly thing to cry about.