This poem is taken from PN Review 59, Volume 14 Number 3, January - February 1988.
Two PoemsGoing to Bed Early
Illness, and going to bed early: this is like childhood -
the carved knobs at the foot of the bed, the patchwork
quilt
a country paved with square fields an index of
other places other beds, peripheral aunts and
families.
And this willingness to wait, as if inside
some dusty lacquered box carved to the shape of a fruit
reserves of time had been found and cautiously
unfolded, so that an hour can be spent in the glow of a
lamp
tracing the bloom on the fall of a red velvet curtain
or re-reading the first chapter of a favourite novel
not opened for years. For nothing new must be
started,
the mind will sample the aroma of evening
...
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