Crossing the floor
she climbs into bed
feeling nearly ill;
she dreams of a dream
that might come, a poem
in which she loves her body.
She is in love; her lover's body
perfect as a red tile floor;
she constructs a red tile poem:
come to bed,
take me from this dream
in which I lie alone, feeling ill .
It is a bloody thing, to be ill,
a civil war of the body
that comes to you as in a dream;
you fall to the floor,
curse the comforts of bed;
you offer a plea in the form of a poem.
She mixes the words of the poem
into a soup; if she is ill,
if she is inscribed onto her bed,
perhaps this warmth in her body
will revive her, return her feet to floor,
stir her from a dark dream.
For there is no kind of dream
that can sustain one, not a poem
written while pacing the floor,
any more than a wish to be ill;
it is simply the tenderness of body
the sweetness of bed.
It is the sweetness of her bed
before sleep, before dream
entices her poet's body;
it is her lover's body curled into a poem,
her own body, well or ill,
fine as a pebbled floor;
her lover's body in her bed,
the hard of floor against dream,
a poem, tender as a child once ill.