We meet in the dark kitchen
with separate hungers,
different aching joints,
each with reasons to be sleepless.

I switch on the stove light,
wince at sudden brightness.
You click off your flashlight,
stand mute, indecisive.

What will digest at this hour?
Something quick and harmless
that may invite sleep – at least
fill dull time until it comes.

Quietly we munch and sip, shuffle
by habit around each other.
It’s the company that satisfies.

Sharon Scholl is a retired college professor (humanities) who convenes a poetry critique group and maintains a website (freeprintmusic.com) of original compositions for small churches. Her chapbooks, Seasons, Remains, Unauthorized Biographies, are available via Amazon Books. Her poems are current in Vita Poetica and Big Windows Review.