After Making Love
We Hear Footsteps
For I can snore like
a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with
any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only
sink deeper
into his dreamless
sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that
heavy breathing
or stifled come-cry
anywhere in the house
and he will wrench
himself awake
and make ffor it on
the run -- as now, we lie together,
after making love,
quiet, touching along the length of our bodies
familiar touch of the
long married,
and he appears -- in
his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so
small
he has to screw them
on, which one day may make him wonder
about the mental capacity
of baseball players --
and flops down between
us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with
satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness
we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across
his little, startlingly muscled body --
this one whom habit
of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal
sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love
gives again into our arms.
-Galway Kinnell
©
1980 Mortal Acts Mortal Words |