Morning

He’s waking before the sun rises these days. Not that that milky pre-dawn hour. I mean that dead of night stillness, that lonely hour not yet broken by the first call to prayer. 

I lie beside him, returning him to the supine position again, and again, and again. I’m tired and cross, so my eyes stay closed and I hover in-between half-sleep and wakefulness.

Sometime around five, I think he may fall asleep again. I lie still with him in my arms, but he snaps his heavy eyes open. It is beginning to grow light now, and I’m fully awake, no longer nettled and groggy. I carry him to the kitchen, make a coffee. The early hour is no longer quite as bitter.