Friday, February 4, 2011

Madonna and Headlamp

Dateline Castle Valley

Utah, 5am:


we're lucky here.

Stars radiate


at eye level

from our mattress,


filling our solid wall

of bedroom window


with (choose your own trope)

diamonds on black velvet,


the princely diadem of night,

black feather headdress of gods,


all the gifts a high desert sky

can offer grubby human eyes,


and I watch

for hours


while my loves

lie snoring softly,


mother and infant daughter,

until that infant daughter


snorts and cries,

just as the lavender


slips into the house of stars,

the fox of morning stealing


the tiny bright eggs of night,

and my wife, broody,


sits up, statuesque shadow,

hunched up among the stars,


and pulls on a small

headlamp for camping,


switches on its white dot

of light like a low star


shining from her forehead,

picks up our grumbling daughter,


whose round head rises

full moon like


in the white light

of the lamp,


and curls her motherly shadow

around the little pool


of lights, our local dreaming,

in this lavender morning,


to nurse

hope back

to sleep.

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