What do you do with a poem?
What do you do with a poem
That tiptoes
On bare feet to your rumpled bedside
Stares quietly at your shuttered eyes
Stares
until you feel the question
And open your eyes
To sort silhouette from shadows, asking
Why have you come?
What do you do with a poem
That cannot sleep and has no answers
Whose breath falls on your face
In suppressed sighs
Sweetly pleading . . .
Do you command it back
To the land from whence it came
Close the door and follow sleep
into familiar caverns of dream?
Do you carry it down
To the red leather couch, share a blanket and
Work out small, hushed syllables
Under moonlight?
Or do you, like me,
Scoop it up
To rest on your own impressionable pillow
Curl your body like a cocoon
around its warmth, thinking,
I will hold it until morning.
--christa wells
