1 I make the bed every day usually after coffee always before lunch Every day for most of my grown up life Making the bed is easy I sleep alone No one to wrestle with No waking in the night to find they have cocooned themselves in all three blankets The fourth on the floor with a cat or two snuggled down If I get overheated in the night I roll the covers down and pull up my gown breathing deeply with my heart thumping and my eyes stinging I wait for it to pass talking to myself about life about my life Sometimes reassured I fall into a deep sleep and wake up naked to the neck and shivering Then I roll the covers back 2 in the morning— no ruffled counterpane no evidence of disturbance The cats have pinned me down again one on either side I hear the birds chattering away eating the berries outside my window And I know the sleeping cats will soon be at them Separated by a single pane of glass They could crash through Like superman—supercat How I ran ecstatic into the blur to taste them on my extended tongue In later years how I ran through the streets pursued by a lover Christopher Reeves died today 3 Incrementally colder the days are shorter I dreamt of a snowfall that quickly covered a trailer, an Airstream You could see its softly rounded shape and a bit of smoke from the top until that too disappeared I try to remember the beauty of winter How the first snowflakes thrilled me caught in a doorway exchanging hot kisses with the first snow considered propitious My landlord won’t turn on the heat until November I can already feel the chill at my back The draft on my neck as I type I am wearing my sheepskin slippers I can feel the bite at my ankles My body isn’t as warm as it once was I must find a house sweater In the bottom of the trunk tonight I must add another blanket Montclair, NJ, 2000
Hiding Out