This Sick and Violent Year

I haven’t slept in weeks again, my dear.
And linking chains of thought is spongey work.
Who could rest, this sick and violent year?
With horror, gasping death, and fear that lurk

and skulk in every crevice of our minds?
What new and unimagined terror next –
no matter how I’m barricaded – finds
an undefended hope or joy to wreck?

But I have found a bed on which to lay
protected from the worst that ere may come.
A silent space defended from the fray
where all my weeping wounds are washed and numbed.

My bed is any where my lover rests
and peace and peace her head upon my chest.