Night Inventory

The sheets map these territories of silence.
Tonight, my arms practice their own pilgrimage,
crossing my chest like refugees
seeking warmth in familiar ruins.

A dinner plate’s distance of loss,
a folded towel’s offering of please,
the hollow drawer
where touch went to die.

Remember how we once folded
into each other like origami swans?
Now paper grows damp in the dark,
while I count your in-between breaths
like rosary beads.

The body forgets pain
so slowly, we mistake forgetting
for grace.

They say you can be lonely in crowds.
Here, loneliness settles between us,
a third body arranging the sheets
with the precision of ritual,
teaching us to carry our own warmth
like a secret.

We lie here, close as bookends,
holding up nothing but ghosts
of what touch used to mean.

You turn.
The sheets submit
their white flag to the dark,
while we perfect the art
of burning separately
in the same fire.

-Stafford Challenge 2025