Six.
"Awaking."
"In the pleasant dream, I rock in the pool
from the yellow lamp.
In my lap, the book of poems and the cat with striped mask
and striped stockings, warm.
And the dark beyond, still.
But for the whippoorwill at 9 o'clock, the world of bats.
Here the cat's purr stirs the silence into small waves.
Your face emerging, indistinct, among the yellow daisies
in the brown jar wakes.
Moves me, under the weight of memory and the loss tomorrow.
To the open door, down the long mown meadow, to find myself
reduced to this crabbed, scratching, under soil.
For the word difficult enough to be your name."