Bedside

I slept
on a sea of cardboard once,
a tenth your age,
worms making more worms in dirt beneath,
sand over soil,
sun basking
like turtles,
snapshots of magma shifting
beneath plates and plates of me,
a closeness
to divine,
a gift to the earth.

You talk in your sleep.
I rub rich oils
into cracks in your armour
and when ache makes a holy,
dank, lonely hole in your frame,
I imagine myself as matter and bones,
mattering to no one,
matterless with time,
your earth left
more bountiful,
thrivingly green.