Sleep Patterns

2:41 a.m., I woke up startled
when a missile plummeted in a backyard
that’s only a mile away from
our own.
2:43 a.m., I went back to sleep.
Broken glass sound and burnt smell are
a litmus test of surviving.

Light travels at one hundred and
eighty six thousand miles a second, but Einstein
didn’t live in war.
Fear is faster, it travels through
bodies, from a heart to another.

Now, in my sleep, my mind measures
the aftermath. I dream that there were
no children in that backyard.
There were no animals.
That it wasn’t
our neighbor, Ghalia - she loved life.
That it only crushed stones. That
the next one will either get both of us,
or none of us.

I could feel your perturbed heart.

8:37 a.m., I lay in bed.
I don’t want to wake up.