On the fifth sleepless night
I scavenged drawers of bedside
table hoping for a dog-eared magazine
or hospital pamphlet, depending
on at least a navy blue Bible
                                                     placed by THE GIDEONS

Nesting with dust bunnies and foreign strands
of hair, beneath the uncracked spine of New Testament,
was a phone book
                                        Greater Lexington Area

The cover was filmy and smudged like cabinets
in a well-used kitchen. I thumbed pages, house numbers,
fences I'd hopped, the names of friends' fathers--
those trellises that splintered under the awkward vines
of their daughters' growth.

An IV pump droned
through stale night noise. Your mouth
the color of bruised peach. I was thankful
for something though I wasn't
sure what.