A Hard Bed to Lie In

A Hard Bed to Lie In
by Marilyn Dumont

A hard night, slept up against a rock face on the side where my mortality
looks like a mountain, leaving my life where it is on an edge
looking down.

tempted to jump, sprout wings as fantastic as the married arms that would
catch me if I leapt

I could have easily been a doe on a highway, (you a driver, your wife
beside you sleeping

me grazing, ruminating the coarse clover, wet blades a mixture of green
desire and

regret that I didn't accept the offer even though

a gold band shone like a beacon, to ward off prey
—not to be mistaken for a jacklight,

just a doe, a stretch of road, high beams

headlights, your eyes,

legs petrified at the speed of light, a flash burn, flare

transfixed by the jacklight and the daylight of the woman who moves
touching you
with her mouth of the moist night,

the night of my turning, aching, having you disclose your desire for me,
turning to yet
another confession in my bed, another crease,

the safe imagined hand crosses my breast to my waist, pubic bone, and
thigh, turns to
another imagined and perfect clean slice of a meeting, the one where I
would have met you years ago when you were an open space, a
meadow to be walked through at high altitudes

and the night's turning

down, wears out

trust in my age, that

flat sheets and a hard bed will not forgive.