Hooks

Their limbs are heavy on me
like hooks
as though even in their sleep
my children don’t want me to leave.

I can’t feel my right arm,
and I wonder again
how he manages to use
his own shins
to bruise mine,
and why do I keep forgetting
to clip her big toenail
as it scrapes like a tiny dagger
along my leg.

But as I plead with the night
to bend faster so I can slip out of their beds
and shower and read
a grown-up book,

I know that one day
I will plead
to bend time
backwards,

to rest my head
just one more time
between theirs.