apron strings

He's Not All That Bad.

My cheating, if now remorseful, husband. And if you a part of your wifey's lack of sleep-at least leave a poem for her in the morning. Though, (should I admit this?) it is lately about my other love-dear Winston-leaving Cate and I). 

Waiting for me the morning following a, poem-defined, night. 

***

Insomniac

by Galway Kinnell

I open my eyes to see how the night
is progressing. The clock glows green,
the light of the last-quarter moon
shines up off the snow into our bedroom.
Her portion of our oceanic duvet
lies completely flat. The words
of the shepherd in Tristan, "Waste
and empty, the sea," come back to me.
Where can she be? Then in the furrow
where the duvet overlaps her pillow,
a small hank of brown hair
shows itself, her marker that she's here,
asleep, somewhere down in the dark
underneath. Now she rotates
herself a quarter turn, from strewn
all unfolded on her back to bunched
in a Z on her side, with her back to me.
I squirm nearer, careful not to break
into the immensity of her sleep,
and lie there absorbing the astounding
quantity of heat a slender body
ovens up around itself.
Her slow, purring, sometimes snorish,
perfectly intelligible sleeping sounds
abruptly stop. A leg darts back
and hooks my ankle with its foot
and draws me closer. Immediately
her sleeping sounds resume, telling me:
"Come, press against me, yes, like that,
put your right elbow on my hipbone, perfect,
and your right hand at my breasts, yes, that's it,
now your left arm, which has become extra,
stow it somewhere out of the way, good.
Entangled with each other so, unsleeping one,
together we will outsleep the night."

***

-This token reeks of the sweet, literature loving husband I fell in love with-what a nice reminder of such and reminder of what was and could be.

five years ago.

the invitation:

____________________________________________________________   the poem, chosen by k, read at the ceremony by the brother in law. ___________________________________________________________   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 beathing in I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.  margaret atwood  ______________________________________________________________________ the pictures. ______________________________________________________________________