Another Song of the Body

Here is another poem I have been working on for my “Songs of the Body” collection.  As always, I would appreciate suggestions on how it might be improved.

Going to Bed

By Rebekah Devine

Going to bed without one’s beloved

is not as obstreperous as a young

lover might be wont to think.

—

Lying on the evergreen quilt, naked,

staring at the virginal ceiling, perplexed,

pondering the feeling of nakedness

though there is no one else in the room;

wondering at this first sense of

bareness in three years of marriage.

—

Glancing at the bodiless chair yawning

before the desk and the half-sipped mug of

cherry sencha, thinking how still,

how attentive is the room; the

dilapidated spider in the corner web -

surely its myriad eyes must perceive

the bereft body stretching, calm and

corpse-like, on the bed.

—

Smoothing the unmussed

space beneath the cobalt pillow,

feeling the itching Absence,

remembering the missing flesh.

—

No, the body torn asunder is not

as disastrous as young lovers are wont to think.

It is not as if this is the first time lovers

were naked and ashamed.

Advertisement