like an ACME safe on a distracted coyote. To date I have one, just one, poem I
like. And the requirement is a collection of at least 10 poems.
It didn’t help that Josh told me of
Margaret Atwood’s poem, Variations on the Word “Sleep.”
I would like to watch you
sleeping,
which may not
happen.
I would like to watch
you,
sleeping. I would like to
sleep
with you, to
enter
your sleep as its smooth dark
wave
slides over my
head
and walk with you through
that lucent
wavering forest of
bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun
& three moons
towards the cave
where you must descend,
towards your
worst fear
I would like to give
you the silver
branch, the small white
flower, the one
word that will protect
you
from the grief at the
center
of your dream, from the
grief
at the center. I would like to
follow
you up the long
stairway
again &
become
the boat that would row you
back
carefully, a
flame
in two cupped
hands
to where your body
lies
beside me, and you
enter
it as easily as breathing
in
I would like to be the
air
that inhabits you for a
moment
only. I would like to be that
unnoticed
& that
necessary.