Watching my Parents Sleeping Beside an Open Window Near the Sea

Needing them still, I come

when I can, this time to the sea

where we share a room: their double bed,

my single. Morning fog paints the pale

scene even paler. Lace curtains breathing,

the chenille spread folded back,

my father's feet white sails furled

at the edge of blue pajamas.

Every child's dream, a parent

in each hand, though this child is fifty.

Their bodies fit easily, with room

to spare. When did they grow

so small? Grow so small—
as if it were possible to swell

backwards into an earlier self.

On the bureau, their toys 
and trinkets. His shaving
brush
and pink heart pills, her gardenia

sachet. The tiny spindle that pricks
the
daily bubble of blood, her sweet
chemistry.
Above our heads

a smoke alarm pulses, its red eye beating.

One more year, I ask the silence.

Last night to launch myself

into sleep I counted their breaths, the tidal

rise and fall I now put my ear to,

the coiled shell of their lives.

Rebecca McClanahan