Poetry, Decembering, The Key in the Door and other poems

Panic

I woke with unaccustomed panic

listening to the tense stillness.

Nothing, it seemed, had changed

or stirred.

I watched the moon paint

translucence on your arm,

outline a silvered shoulder

and frost your face.

Watching the rhythm of your breathing

the rise and fall of your chest,

I laid my head there,

to reassure myself.