I sit up in bed at night and listen to you snore
I met you in a bus station and now I wonder at your back
sick white and stained with children’s freckles
as the lamp divests the unsolvable sorrow of the world upon your sleep.
I cannot see your feet but I must guess that they are
most charming feet.
who do you belong to?
are you real?
I think of flowers, animals, birds
they all seem more than good
and so clearly real.
yet you cannot help being a
woman. we are each selected to be
something. the spider, the cook.
the elephant. it is as if we were each
a painting and hung on some
gallery wall.
— and now the painting turns
upon its back, and over a curving elbow
I can see a mouth, one eye and
almost a nose.
the rest of you is hidden
out of sight
but I know that you are a
contemporary, a modern living
work
perhaps not immortal
but we have
loved.
please continue to
snore.