Third Day

I turned the pillow in the dark—

the soaked side down, the dry side up—

and the cold of it came through

the way a window opened elsewhere in the building

comes through a wall.

The streetlight in the curtain gap

was a line again.

For three days it had been a smear,

orange, soft, a thing I kept trying

to bring to a point.

Now it was just a line.

I could smell the room.

The salt in the sheets.

A cup of something on the floor I hadn't finished.

The particular thickness of air

that's been sealed around one sick body

long enough.

I didn't move.

A car went through the street outside.

I heard the tires as tires—

as a sound,

not as pressure behind the forehead.

I waited for it to go wrong again.