SPECIAL DELIVERY

She sounded so sleepy on the phone, her voice wilting like flowers, so I have sent her a case full of sleep. I can see her now, rummaging through it with a tired, happy smile: she picks out snoozes and holds them up to the light; she lays carefully polished catnaps across her palm. And I can see her, too, alighting the stairs, clutching a heavy piece of gin-drugged slumber. She has crammed her pockets with an assortment of snores, and she is taking up a few citrus dreams, for good measure.