AUBADOIR
AFTER RAYMOND CARVER RINA OLSEN
I
, too, have discovered happiness in the dregs of dawn. it is not dark & God takes a 6B Staedtler to sketch the outlines of each corner of my room & the door & the nightstand & the desk & the criss-cross diamond pattern of my bedspread. to let the sun fill them in with Technicolor later. the raw taste of sleep patches my throat in a wool quilt and to wash it down i suckle at the sky’s peach breast as a calf must do. moonlight streams down my chin as i gulp to the rhythm of the air conditioning. reborn again, in this little pocket of the morning right before the cicadas begin to whine. newspaper boys have gone extinct now. but to let the blue light of a phone screen flare in this pocket is sacrilege. i wipe my mouth, & breathe. with every stitch of color sewn onto the spaces between the window blinds, another dream spills out my ear onto my pillow, just a wet stain before evaporating. in this pocket, not one thing has yet happened and i can simply lie in the warm darkness, lie to myself that this will last long enough. i know i could reach over and switch on the light and read. or let my tiptoes kiss the hallway silence when i go to relieve the dull pressure in my bladder. but i don’t. i remain a jumble of flesh & cold sweat in the damp sheets, watching some spot on the corner, staying silent, still.
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