SHE WRITES WHILE HER MAN SLEEPS

Late at night, she leans into her notepad.
On paper, the usual mirage, light yellow pasture.
A face lumbers into view, out of the grasses, through the trees.
A lost idea stumbles down from high cliffs,
meets a new one halfway up.
No concern with mail here. Nor with proper postage.
The connection whirs like cicadas.
The zip code is the self. Likewise the on-line address.
And the phone number.
Ochre crawls from a crease. A blue line
mutates into a fault line. And here comes burnt sienna,
a broad, pastel hue struggling to imitate a sleeping man.
He snores like a snorting cow. Good for him.
Good for the divide that closes with the right phrase,
separates again when it finally gravitates to its own meaning.
Most of the light has left, leaving only the brightness
of the bulb, the personal light that works like clay.
Everything's lost its outline but her thoughts.
She has all the shapes, all the colors, within her.
He turns his head on the pillow, doesn't realize the
past falls out of him. She scoops a little of it in her hand,
A shine on their meeting. A glimpse of a kiss.
A gleaming extension of their war games.
Fireflies don't work this well. Soon enough,
she'll tire, will crawl in beside his limp body,
his unmoored dreams. But for now, she
scribbles. She makes a sentence. She crosses
it out. Eventually a poem emerges. Not great
but good enough to end the day. Look at that man.
So at peace. His wonder requires no engagement.
But her imagination always needs the work.

-- John Grey