Unable to sleep I turn form the comfortless bed
And watch where the night turns all our roofs to metal;
I see you sadly asleep on the grateful sheets
That are for me ropes, knouts, hard instruments;
I am glad of these circumstances. It is not long
Since my deliberate savagery made you desperate
And you waited too long for any contrition at all.
When I pretend that the best words come in the dark
And you are asleep as I speak them to the deaf moon.
For such dishonesty the night rejects my fever
And the malevolent furniture sneers from its corners.
Leslie Norris
