It’s the small things
               that die
in the ripple of darkness
               we call night
that define transition,
the almost unnoticed
until their presence
               has changed—
the curl of lifeless legs
of some sweet spider
near my morning slippers.

You tell me I giggled
in my sleep last night,
but I remember only crying,
a sense of something
               dying nearby.
I suspect I was not
quite myself; that woman
lying beside you
               who laughed
while she slumbered
was merely in your dream.