PRESSURE POINTS

when my wife sleeps
she leaves

all her pressure points

exposed.

i know holds
from self-defense
to make an enemy
or a wife
relent.

laying there spent,
my wife has already submitted,

if not to me then to some other
force, equally dim-witted.
her mouth leaks when

she speaks in dreams,
and her hair
drapes her face and
channels her tears
into streams of wet ache;

and I guard her
borders
like an occupying army,
present
and waiting for something
impossible to arrive.