Poem

Etude
Carol Schiess
for Wayne, for Carol

I
Sleep is a deep spinning dive
through dark water to a cavern
bright with the light of you,
where the sudden saving breath
inhales the scent of you
lingering on the skin,
where the quickening touch
is your fingers
wiping water from my face.

II
In sleep the muscles relent,
tissues, cells give over
to all they resist waking.
The body can move
through fire,
absorbing heat,
until it throws back the covers,
spreads the arms wide
in welcome.

III
At the piano a small girl sits,
playing again again and now again
a certain passage, the notes
before her. Someone weeps.
Perhaps she
weeps. Tears run
down the page, notes
blur, fingers turn
wooden,
hearing fails, her mother--
not there before--
walks from the room
shaking her head. Sleep
is a reaching, an invasion
of fears, of loss, of something
never found.