That's when I tell you, Annie,
that you dream of submarines –
when I feel your small and sudden warmth
curled in the crook of my sleep-heavy arm.
The monstrous bacilli
and eyeless mouthless sharks
are your fingertips
extended into darkness, brushing
fairy-lighted ctenophores
and gape-jawed eels
and snake-legged octopodes.
Your nightmares are adventurers
I tell you, and I watch your breathing
deep and even as the waves.