When you wake up, and find
You slept through the night, needy sleeper,
Glad to find oblivion took your mind, it seems—
It didn’t. Oblivion has dreams.
Now they come back to you. Your life
Continued to be life, even as you died
To it. You still cried out. A new wife
Blamed you in a letter. She described
In the letter you falling in love with only
The appearance of her in the dream.
You loved her body only. It gets worse.
Life started going backwards in the way
You tried to describe this. Life in reverse
Was the plan of your poem. The day
Gave you words; you planned
In backwards fashion, words, so images
Might, by treating language as image,
Going forward, give you one slender chance to understand.
So now what do you do? Will you ponder
A new way to love her without disappointing her?
When you stand up and put on your clothes
Will you remember how this poem goes?
Will she be receptive when you say
Oblivion is my dream today?