Dreaming of Bedtime With my Husband While Working

A poem

Photo by author.

The hillsides go blank every 24 hours
then resume their poses on the horizon
in the middle of a new life. I married
in the heat of August, almost 50. I’m no
Dante but I’ve been lost in the Wood,
I’ve run backward through mazes,
been bitten and held by the roads not taken — see
the bruises on my knuckles, the square shoulders?

Nothing is ever so bad, now that you are here,
staring at me as I undress for bed (even if I act annoyed never stop).
Is it really our favorite time, going to bed on a wild globe,
rampant with forests, historical cities, wild animals, northern lights?

It’s you and me, going dark every 24 hours inside clean-ish
sheets, our legs diving inside a tangle of nerves —
your rough forearms (“put lotion on!”, I yell); my overheated
midlife system moving toward the edge. Outside
a blood moon rises. We meditate to The Who,
dream to the freeway noise. By 8:30 am I am dressed