Sound Machine

A poem for my current grief

I hear your sound machine through the baby monitor.
The day is done, time to rest.
Still, an ear always listening for you.
To make sure you’re okay.

There was a season when I didn’t hear the sound machine.
Just silence. Horrific, stomach-churning silence.
My ears didn’t have to listen anymore.
There was no one to listen for.

There is comfort in the sound machine.
I have someone here to love, again.
Someone to keep me from sleeping too deeply.
Even so, the sound haunts me
with the memory of its disappearance.