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Poem-a-Day Collection by Knopf. Compilation copyright 2009 by Knopf.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.
Going Back to Bed by J.D. McClatchy Up early, trying to muffle
the sounds of small tasks,
grinding, pouring, riffling
through yesterday's attacks or market slump, then changing
my mind—what matter the rush
to the waiting room or the ring
of some later dubious excuse?— having decided to return to bed
and finding you curled in the sheet,
a dream fluttering your eyelids,
still unfallen, still asleep, I thought of the old pilgrim
when, among the fixed stars
in paradise, he sees Adam
suddenly, the first man, there in a flame that hides his body,
and when it moves to speak,
what is inside seems not free,
not happy, but huge and weak, like an animal in a sack.
Who had captured him?
What did he want to say?
I lay down beside you again, not knowing if I'd stay,
not knowing where I'd been. -- Buy J.D. McClatchy's Mercury Dressing from Amazon here. Buy J.D. McClatchy's Mercury Dressing from Indiebound here. Visit poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com for more about this poem and to sign up for Knopf's 2010 Poem-a-Day email. Excerpt from MERCURY DRESSING. Copyright © 2009 by J. D. McClatchy. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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