We both wake up around eight, eight-thirty.
You sleepily ask if I want a coffee
and with the cat curled up on the ottoman
you rise to the kitchen to make it.
As you return with two steaming mugs
I prop myself up with a pair of pillows.
You climb back into bed next to me.
We sip our drinks in sumptuous silence.
We may or may not turn on the radio
and gradually start to plan our day.
Moments like this are what I live for –
a softness we’ve worked so hard to gain;
a sense of stillness possible only in light
of the graft and grind that came before.
Dark towns may heap up on the horizon
but we’ll shut the window. We’ll lock the door.
Joshua Seigal
[this poem is a response to Philip Larkin's famous
piece 'Talking in Bed', which you can read here]
