1.

By the time I wake up the day's already half eaten.
He kisses me on the cheek with dry, smiling lips:
"There's breakfast on the table"

There's leftovers on the table, bread crusts and yolk that ran off of the plate.
My plate is stagnant and cold, but that's not his fault
Both the baby and the alarm failed to do their job and cry,
Leaving me sweating out my dreams beneath the faux-down duvet insert.

I can't remember where the cover went, or if it came with a cover at all.
I remember ruining the sheets by washing them in hot water and drying them on high
But I do not remember a duvet cover.
I should ask him about the duvet cover.
I should ask him about the fact that my eggs over easy don't look easy at all
They look like the ectoplasm of exploded ghosts sliding towards my toast.
I shudder.
Now I remember.
The duvet cover is in the closet upstairs.

"I wanted to let you sleep in"/ 'your own sweat,
hotboxed by the fake down and the sheets that don't breathe.'

I sleep less easy these days than your Cubans,
three years old and still nestled in the humidor I bought you before we had her
and you decided to give up your cancer.
You asked me to put it in the attic one day two years ago while I was carrying
up my old clothes.
I can still feel my revulsion.
'I would rather cut off my own fingers than let that happen.'
So I said no.

Actually, I said "It's an art piece,"
and you looked relieved enough to cry.

I know I was right. Nothing comes down from the attic the same as it goes up.
My old clothes smell like pine dust and our antiquity
I will not let that happen to your humidor
Because I wish I hadn't let it happen
To me.

2.

You see, I am a good wife
even as I drop the cold eggs down the sink.
I wait until you're upstairs to run the garbage disposal so you won't hear it.
Now breakfast is off the table along with everything else.

I sigh.

I am a good wife.

I love this family.

3.

Delia, you're sleepwalking again.
This is not what those parenting books meant by parity.
You are supposed to be awake now, Delia.

Delia, they're watching you again.
They notice the disparity.
Avert your eyes and hide your sallow smile behind a lazy Saturday morning.

Sophomore year they called you an acceptable Lady Macbeth.
Not great, but good enough for an audience,
Especially one this eager to suspend disbelief.
So go ahead; make believe:
Make them believe, Delia!
Convince yourself you are again.

Delia, you're a parody of parity.
An understudy of yourself.
Good gravidity, poor follow through.
Now losing gravity and floating,
Just floating.

They're not watching you, so go.
Go quickly and put your sorrow down the sink.

"Uh oh, uh oh,"
You're far too slow.

Delia, you're sleepwalking again.

4.

Are you ok?
It is a good lie. I tell it with love, for love, breaking my own back
So that yours might not strain from stopping down beside me
To ask "are you ok?"

I am not ok.

I am the space between consecutive letters that cannot be
Compressed enough to eliminate liminality.
Disorientation, confusion, a battlefield of white.
I am living between the weight of the duvet without a cover
and the sheets that refuse to breathe for me.
Will you breathe for me?
With me?
I'm afraid to exhale and collapse a lung.
I'm saving my voice for screaming,
Just in case.

I used to be brave.

I used to be.

Now I just am, and I am not
ok. Ok?

I am the watery ghosts sliding down the kitchen sink
Down the shower drain
Down the pipes of the plumbing
Into cespooling rat-races.

I am not ok.

I am slipping,
Tripping towards the infinite with startling velocity,
Thrown back against my cabin and held tight by
Centripetal force.

Is this a circle or a line we're going in, anyways?
'Doesn't matter', the monitor cackles:
'We're still headed for the sun.'

I sigh, take a breath without exhaling.
Pull the hurricane back in.
Ground the storm, my palms discharging lightning
Into the linoleum floor.

I am not ok, but I am, really. I'm fine.
I just need to sleep some, sleep off the smoke and
Plug my ears against the sound of the shuttle's rapid-fire beeping.

There is no escape pod,
And if there was,
I could not take it.

All around is blackness, and you, and after all
it is only Saturday.