Visitation

I wake twice in the night to find my boy silhouetted in the dim light of the doorway. His voice quivers. "Mommy, I'm scared." The reason does not concern me. I will leave archaeology to the lover who will whisper him open in the next lifetime. I rise. My hand alights between his shoulder blades, fluttering him back towards bed. My body curls around his and I drape a blanket of breath over his head. He slips like a stone down to the bottom of sleep's dark spring. When the ripples left by his fleeting fear finally still, I press my lips once more to the steady pulse at his temple and make my way back to my own unquiet sheets.