Breaths and silences

Unsleeping, Adam leaves the bed to take
a sedative, then slides back in. Eve's deep
breathing tells him that she did not wake.
He lies there thinking back upon the year
he lay awake and listened, wrapped in fear,
to make sure she was breathing, and how sleep
would tug him down; recalls how glad he was
to hear her snore. She is snoring gently now.
He thinks of wakeful nights he slept alone,
and then of all the lovers who have known
these breaths and silences; he'll write a poem.
He starts it in his head to pass the time.
He makes a line or two he wants to keep,
repeats them to himself as he falls asleep.