I mentioned-- and when I was reading in the prose thing,
I mentioned that poem I started began with that phrase
'two sleeps,' and I typed in the middle of the page.
The poem went through a lot of drafts.
And in the course of the drafts, that phrase just
got cut from the final poem.
And I sent this poem to--
I sent the book to Mary Ruefle.
And she wrote me a very lovely note about the book.
She's very kind.
But she said, I'm sad because I missed the phrase two sleeps.
What happened to it?
Which is like such a Mary Ruefle thing to say, right?
And so I wrote this poem for her called "Two Sleeps."
So it's sort of like closes this circle of the "Two
Sleeps" for Mary Ruefle.
When the other father told his child something
will happen in two sleeps,
At first I didn't understand he meant something comforting.
Time passing with quick ease,
A way to measure nights,
Numbered in unearned peace.
I just thought of my own two sleepers who often wake,
waking me.
Though, even in sleep, I'm always already awake
At that oddest hour that does not end,
The crooked, unnumbered one.
Then they fall back into their respective oblivions.
I lie shrouded in this barge that does not cross the river,
listening.
No music of the dead.
No wise silence.
No penultimate dream.
I just worry every particle can now be counted.
That we are all caretakers of a dying patient
named the self or the sea.
I lie here and worry.
I'm worrying about all the wrong things.
According to some system, I worry,
I myself created, probably in my sleep.
It is very utterly dark, like a branch in total darkness.
I cannot be discerned.
All night, I stand beneath the tree.