On the Loveliness of our Intimate Repose
Jim KleinPrettily quartered by the imaginary
line of eyelashes crossing
your nose above sleep-pursed lips
your child-like face lies anuzzle
on a red feather cushion.
Your fingers droop to piano keys.
Beyond orange-round-knees
veeing down to the vein-blue ankle
bent over your poor callused little toe,
a woman’s magazine lies open
on your blind breasts
while, to tick tock, bird chirp,
and refrigerator whirr,
I sit savoring Nabokov’s
itches and tickles
until I am moved to reach
for a yellow legal pad,
partly torn and dry-paste stiff,
crosshatched We and They,
cradling the eggs of round numbers,
to begin with the bleeding end
of a red felt tip pen
these notes on the loveliness
of our intimate repose.
