The Sleep of a Learning Man

When I woke my body
     was idling, my teeth
vibrating like small change
     in a truck ash tray.
There was much to consider
     lying there in the dark
beside my son, who was
     sleeping with his legs
tucked under his chest
     as he did in the daguerreo-
type images we saw
     of someone doing a knee-tuck
under a shifting film
     of blood grains.
Too late for sleep, I tried
     to imagine other positions
a scanned and floating boy
     might assume, and why
I was humming to my bones
     in bed. I turned over
to the right shoulder, lifted
     my head, and looked into it.
I saw a puzzle of coils.
     I heard a valve pump
labouring to clear
     its body-feeding lines.
Whatever my son said then
     as he breathed and moved
into another position
     and name for sleep
held words of comfort,
     and I found myself
drifting from thoughts
     of a troubled heart
into what his first sentence
     would sound like, what
it might contain, and when
     it would surface, there
on the open border
     of his second language –
words with the ability
     to calm himself and the fitful
sleep of a learning man.