January 06, 2008

The Second Between

Jane Kenyon writes about it best
I remember as I get out of bed.
I try not to overfling the blankets,
but I’m mad at the night and my
listing brain ticking past its chores.

In the bathroom I don’t turn on the lights.
I feel the cat’s ribs and her extended frame
as she stretches on the bath mat.
Does she like my insomnia or just accompany it?
She’s a head companion, a scarf of thought, and a dream dictator.
She chooses to sleep almost exclusively on pillows and the back of the couch
with one back leg extended to rest against a shoulder or a temple.

I feed her and look out the window.
I hope for birds but hear none.
I write two zealous and verby lesson plans in blue ink and a string of post-its.
These are exorcisms really, detailed scripts, each overdone.

I keep myself from making a to-do list.
I’m writing this poem instead. I repeat to myself,
“You’re writing this poem instead.”

The sky is gray now and I nudge the cat with my pen.
Up close her white fur sticks out like fish bones—
tiny white filament floating at the edge of my face.

She bristles and in a moment is off the couch and at the window.
Is it morning?
Is she up?

—Carley Moore

Posted by dwaber at January 6, 2008 02:19 PM