In the dim hour before sunrise, the speaker tiptoes into a loved one’s room and finds her sleeping. He takes in the quiet gloom, the holiness of her sleeping form. The stillness feels sacred. He kneels, and as she stirs, her fingers curl around his head, drawing him to her breast. For a stretched moment, he rests with a peace he never thought he’d know outside of heaven — so deeply that he cannot even weep. It is a memory held in perfect, suspended tenderness.
Then the memory bites back. He says she did him great wrong. That sleepy, almost maternal comfort was just a poor moment’s gain. It woke a love in him that now refuses to quiet. What stays is the ache of someone given only a taste of tenderness — enough to stir a deep longing that won’t fall asleep again. The whole poem breathes like a confession, intimate and regretful.