I brush my lips against my wife’s,
\nmy whiskers tickling her nose;
\nand wish her a sweet goodnight.<\/p>\n
I grab the awkward, jock-strap, polygon of my breathing-mask,
\nCPAP – continuous positive airway pressure,
\n<\/b>stretch the bands until it cups my mouth and nose and latch it on.
\nA makeshift facehugger of medical plastics, its tail leading off
\nto a bedside contraption filled with distilled water,
\nrather than coiling my throat.<\/p>\n
My hand searches, past pillow and tube, for my eye mask,
\nMolded microfiber, pillow-soft, hypoallergenic, light-proof,
\npull the single strap across the web of my CPAP’s bands
\ndrawing the eldritch sigil that’s come to mean “sleep”.<\/p>\n
Three generations ago, my great-grandfathers curled down
\nunder homemade quilts in crowded homes where “heating” was a luxury.<\/p>\n
Further back still, generation upon generation made due
\nwith straw mats in houses of wood or sod,
\nflies and fleas and children for bedmates;
\nwindows of glass were for churches and kings<\/p>\n
And hard-footed progenitors collapsed under the revolving stars,
\nwrapped in the furs of beasts they’d hunted,
\nthe fading coals of their fires at their backs.<\/p>\n
The kiss is the only part they’d recognize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I brush my lips against my wife’s, my whiskers tickling her nose; and wish her a sweet goodnight. I grab the awkward, jock-strap, polygon of my breathing-mask, CPAP – continuous positive airway pressure, stretch the bands until it cups my mouth and nose and latch…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68322,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67579\/revisions\/68322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}