(Poem #42)Sleep The young dog would like to know why we sit so long in one place intent on a box that makes the same noises and has no smell whatever. Get out! Get out! we tell him when he asks us by licking the back of our hand, which has small hairs, almost like his. Other times he finds us motionless with papers in our lap, or at a desk looking into a humming square of light. Soon the dog understands we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping with our eyes open, then goes to sleep himself. Is it us he cries out to, moving his legs somewhere beyond the rooms where we spend our lives? We don't think to ask, upset as we are in the end with the dog, who has begun throwing the old, shabby coat of himself down on every floor or rug in the apartment, sleep, we say, all that damn dog does is sleep. |