The Last Bed
I should 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, says Ted or Bill, the last thing
I hear before we drift off spooning on a queen
that is not too soft and not too hard, but just right
for ferrying us down this final stretch of river
past the last roof we’ll put on the house,
one last drive through the Tunnel of Trees,
the dog snoring soft imprecations to tender hips
on his old bed some rainy April night.
Two dormice cupped in a leaf
rills and eddies conveying us to the sea
on softly rolling shoulders.
Dec 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016 at 9:18 AM UTC
The Last Bed
I should 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, says Ted or Bill, the last thing
I hear before we drift off spooning on a queen
that is not too soft and not too hard, but just right
for ferrying us down this final stretch of river
past the last roof we’ll put on the house,
one last drive through the Tunnel of Trees,
the dog snoring soft imprecations to tender hips
on his old bed some rainy April night.
Two dormice cupped in a leaf
rills and eddies conveying us to the sea
on softly rolling shoulders.
