Unable to find

the right way to get out of bed,

we watch the shades cut down
into thin slices, waver a while,
shoulder to shoulder, then join, lazy.

Let's leave this room now: it's given us

all it can, let's go—it's Sunday—have
breakfast out, find a table for two: two eggs,
two toast, two coffees—black. No, nothing

plain: latté. We'll read the paper,

the story of a man who rescued the only thing
he wanted from the rubble of his collapsed shack:
his cat—and be moved by it, and like that;

or play hangman on our paper napkins,

find easy words—no double-meanings: day,
night, rivers... then send the game to its fate,
crumpled on our empty plates.

Let's step inside a church, sit through a wedding,

a christening, a mass for the dead, but leave
before the last amen. We'll take the long way home,
make plans for summer—winter even.


--Laure-Anne Bosselaar