Going Home
He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
He pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He’s nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists as he did inside his mother’s womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he’ll give a lecture
on homeostasis in megagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.
by Wislawa Szymborska
from Poems New and Collected
Harcourt, 1998