A Palatable Dose 

White sheets, white walls, but 

warm, not like a crazy house. 

Sunlight burns,  

Emma barks.  

I’m glad for the white walls, 

the droning AC.  

But I awoke from a terror, 

an ill lit backroom in Chinatown. 

A search for the unsavory? 

No, give me white noise  

in this gray space of Midtown. 

It grows across the city  

(but not out of the way, like Canary Wharf)  

from its center - a new heart. 

I kick off the body pillow,  

the one Julia hates, since it assumes 

space of a third. I smother her 

with my body. 

She’s tough, like mahogany. My kind of  

love.  

I left dishes in the sink, books, 

pens on the couch, tennis shoes  

on the kitchen counter. I love my  

morning croissants, their debris 

remains unlike Julia’s single  

bite, cleanly collected. She points to  

my gathered trail, my flung out  

unconscious. Get out of bed, clean  

my mess, feed Emma. 

Sisyphus, somewhere, is smiling, 

sweating under a white sun.