The Daybed

THE DAYBED


He was the one who understood, having read
Clausewitz, and Rommel’s forged diaries –

the essence of warfare is always metaphor,
diaper-changing facility in every john.

Keep alarming the opposition by simple
evidence: a stone that did not kill Abel,

a sword that left Holofernes untouched,
asleep, dreaming of nice Jewish girls,

their opulent smiles, their promises.
I want to give you what you gave me,

a piece of furniture you found on the street,
but you used it, you lay down in it

a thousand nights till it was yours
then you had boyfriends drag it to my place

and ever since it shapes how I lie down
and how I sleep, dreaming of rusty swords.

Now I have to give you some cushioned thing
infested with my life, my imagery

to agitate your sleep. Memories
of things we heard each other say –

the words get inside our bodies and repeat
till we spend our lives trying to practice

all the lunacies they specified,
the lies we told us on the telephone.


Robert Kelly

Posted over on Charlotte Mandell