The Last Bed We Buy

Should I be grateful not to find myself
disembodied hovering high above this stark
cake of soap, gazing down, laboring to put
names to faces, the couple so familiar,
side by side, palms down, still as miller

moths displayed on pins, our salesman,
Bill or Ted, rumpled like a morning after
motel king, reading my mind, musing on
this pair of worn porcelain dolls
painted in chipped shades of hesitation?  

Soft or firm versus memory foam or pillow top?  

Hypoallergenic pipes Ted or Bill, the last thing
I hear before we drift off spooning on a queen,
one not too soft and not too hard, but just right,
a satiny raft to ferry us the final stretch of river.

Waving like Queens we float on by the last new
roof over which we will preside, a nod of recognition
for the last new water heater, too.  Applaud politely  
our farewell drive through the Tunnel of Trees

one biting October afternoon in the not so distant future.
Cluck our tongues for the poor dog snoring soft
imprecations to hips gone tender some coming
rainy April night.  Blow twin Bronx cheers,

fat, wet, and sloppy, as we bid adieu to one last
shameless act of televised hubris.  Grace lies
ahead around the next oxbow, two dormice
cupped in a leaf, rills and eddies conveying us
to the sea on softly rolling shoulders.