Variation on the Word Sleep
I would like to watch you
sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch
you,
sleeping. I would like to
sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth
dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through
that lucent
wavering forest of
bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun &
three moons
towards the cave where
you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you
the silver
branch, the small white
flower, the one
word that will protect
you
from the grief at the
center
of your dream, from the
grief
at the center. I would
like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row
you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing
in
I would like to be the
air
that inhabits you for a
moment
only. I would like to be
that unnoticed
& that necessary.
Check out this amazing essay, "Sleep as Resistance", by Siobhan Phillips.
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