This morning you tuned up the Norton,
blackening your fists from fingernail
to wrist in just-changed oil. This afternoon,
stepping lily-scented from your shower,
underarms patted with baby powder,
you drop on my four-post bed, forgetting
in exhausted dreams, how much you want
to be back; how you can hardly wait,
free again after winter, to drive up
the smoking Hudson and disappear
in the Pocono Hills. But I see death’s
shadow riding beside you. I see how
it creeps, when you bend your knee to
the road, like a mortal stain up your side.
TO MY HUSBAND, SLEEPING
