Two On A Mattress

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.