Raft

Small flying creature for whom

I have no name— lesser

than a gnat— your wings churn

on an engine so fragile I cannot

imagine it, though I can, if I stand

very still, hear your life humming

near my ear in the quiet bathroom,

combing my hair in the aftermath

of the nightly news: the strewn

limbs and firebombed cities,

the men clinging to rubble

as if rubble could save them

from the swaying, the hurtled

world. Nameless creature

for whom this cramped room

is a universe, the good steam

rising from the shower stall,

you’ve settled on the soap cake

melting into its bamboo dish, a man

on a raft who could be crushed

by the waves rolling over him, forever

it must seem. Do you look up toward

the light, the pocked and cratered

terrain of my face, a moon so huge

you cannot fathom it.

Copyright © 2007 Dorianne Laux All rights reserved
from The American Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission