Sleeping Woman

Her book,
open and overturned like a small tent,
her glasses, her ashtray,
her exhaustion hanging in the room
like the shadows of a lamp she had forgotten to switch off
before she went to bed,
her green aspirin strip
with four pills missing,
our late night argument,
which ended in confusion and compassion
still hanging in the obscurity of this dawn
that will now pass
from darkness to the sun,
everything
brought her so suddenly to mind
that I could hardly believe
she was still asleep.