The moon’s river passes through the crystalline aperture of night,And the pillow next to me illuminates with a glowing kind of grey.The shadows in the corner of the bedroom seem to blur the margins into darkness,And the rigid frames of dusty fixtures cast long, unidentifiable forms across the floor. You sleep alone on a hospital bed.The dim green glow of the machines bathes the room in a kind of radium aura.Occasional beeps punctuate the otherwise silent night.But it’s all pretense, an illusion of midnight’s fancy. Once I could see and feel your life,But now it hangs from a thread inaccessible to me.So I can only wait, completely powerless,Imagining what might be, what I hope to be. I look to the black sky for something, anything,But its clarity only reveals the extent of its emptiness.With each passing moment the night stretches into an eternity,And I replay the last time I heard your voice, stolen by your air-starved lungs. As dawn’s light slowly creeps up the wall,The anticipation brings a cold wave that spreads over my skin.I tremble under the sheets and blankets.Finally, the time comes and the phone rings. The doctor tries to be reassuring, but it's an affront to the truth. A lone night’s vigil awaits me again tonight.