Mattress

Last night I pulled out that old mattress from
the past which my parents keep under their bed

and watched as it buttered the parquet floor with
an unearthed, rectangular piece of childhood sky.

Yellow star-shapes remained spaced out in comity,
but in between was the delicate thinness of fabric,

dusty, and dirtied with the ashen traces of scorched
years. The last time I lay on it was the last time

I was thoroughly sick; engulfed in bitter fever and
having, with some languorous tossing and turning,

caused that comfortable, fluid interstice to
evaporate, as it eventually did from my memory,

so I sometimes found myself on stubborn wood,
conscious of how the hard surface had exposed me

and left me rushing again for its simple reassurance;
and beyond that, the contentment of fairer youth.

But once again I lay on the mattress, allowing it
to reclaim and slip me into a fresh recumbence,

as both bodies briefly shed the ennui of age,
while I couldn’t help but fall firmly asleep.