Bad Woman, planning someone's falling variation
Editor’s Note: This poem by Sheila McMullin is being presented as part of our special focus on poetry during #PoetryMonth in April. Please read our introduction to the series.
A person lies next to me
Someone’s arm wraps tenderly around my waist
So sweetly this fingertip circles my hipbone
I know this person’s name
An owl circling the chimney
Eyes like brick
Eating the songbird
I forget this arm has fingers
When I say I can hear two
eyes opening and closing
I mean are they looking at me
both heads on gray pillows
one nose toward one ear one nose toward one ceiling
I am not planning on falling asleep
when the plan was to fall asleep
Angry that this is all that is left in the dark
Sleep when I’d rather escape head first
through the window the bed is facing
through glass and metal and plastic onto the grass
Are you blinking
Yes
What are you thinking about
Things I don’t know
The bed makes a crunching as I turn my back to the voice
I thought the dove coos
were owls in the daytime
owls in holes in trees wide awake
whenever someone could hear them yelling
Used with permission from Cleveland State University Poetry Center
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