After the Alarm Stopped

The alarm went off at two

and stopped.

Forty seconds of sound

and then the whole neighborhood

went back to whatever it was before,

which was nothing,

which was worse.

I lay there in the orange light—

the streetlamp doing its one trick

through the curtain—

and the ceiling looked

like the inside of something

I couldn't name.

The blanket was too heavy.

I didn't move it.

Four nights now.

The first three I could explain:

coffee, a text I should have answered,

the ordinary static of a life

with too many open tabs.

Last night was different.

Last night the quiet

pressed on my sternum like a thumb.

I kept listening for the next thing.

There wasn't one.

I listened anyway, for two hours,

which is its own kind of

occupation—

the body doing its sentinel work

for a threat that already left,

or never came,

or is still coming,

I can't tell which.