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 buyers’ hesitation?
Soft
or firm versus memory foam or pillow top?
Hypoallergenic,
drones Ted or Bill, the last thing
I hear before we drift off spooning on a plush 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 past the last
new roof over which we will preside,
a nod of recognition for the last new water heater,
too.
Applaud politely what very well could be a farewell
drive through the Tunnel of Trees one biting
October afternoon.
Weep softly, wistful for the poor
dog snoring soft imprecations to hips gone tender
some rainy April night dog years from now.
Blow Bronx cheers, fat, wet, and sloppy, as we bid
adieu to life mediated through screens because
even Bill or Ted knows that grace lies
ahead, just around the next oxbow, leaves
us to sleep undisturbed, two dormice
cupped in a leaf, rills and eddies bearing us
seaward on softly rolling shoulders.
No comments:
Post a Comment