Something Like a Warning

The hand reached in the dark,

nothing dramatic,

just the charger somewhere near the pillow edge,

and the sheet bit back.

Not hard. Not anything, really.

One bright point on the knuckle

and then the arm pulling away

before I said to.

I lay there with the tingling,

three in the morning,

the room the same dark it had always been,

and thought: so the body still does this.

Still flinches from a thing

it can't see coming.

Still draws back from the air itself

when the air says no.

The phone glowed on its own eventually.

I didn't reach for it again.

Just left my hand open

above the place where the shock had been,

like I was waiting

for an explanation

that the dark was under no obligation

to give.