In slippers, you pad back from peeing,
slump into your side of our bed,
we spoon ourselves back to a comfortable warmth.
Slipping towards sleep, you mumble me your dream
of newborns crawling into the pocket of your robe.
I don't quite remember mine, but it was of epic proportions,
to a John Williams score.

I stretch my arm along the range of hip and flank
that is you, that has always been.

The chaconne at my soul's ear
where it has lived for days now,
sings praise and praise and pain.

In darkness then, and the drifting silence,
their names are skinned from all the things of the world:
torn, taken into wind and eternity. This hill is stripped, and the house.
Our bed, finally, is naked of all its names.

I will hold tight to all this nonetheless; to you,
to those in your pocket, in your dreams.
And I do hold tight, in my tears and my joy.

November 2005