Midnight Observations
by Maggie McCain
 
As I watch you sleep
unquiet, pursued by
the remembrance of past evils
the anticipation of those to come
I think how far we are
from the times when your nightmares
were banished with a hug
and a nightlight.

The empty aching that for so long
has been a kind of emotional white noise
in my soul
is filled and soothed
by you the strange familiar
and its cessation reminds me how sharp
I always felt its gnawing.
  
Searching for a shadow made of memories
of a round-eyed boy alight with wonder
I found a man like and unlike him,
with his eyes filled with the anguish of loneliness.
  
You were
my search, my quest, my calling
my life orbited you
my son, my sun.