Sleeping in My Sister’s Bed
the strange uncomfortable plane of foam
it might as well be stone
I must explain to you why I sleep
in my sister’s bed, why she is not here,
the woven spread, the ripped corner
of the striped sheet, I must explain to you
why I am not in my own bed, its familiar quilt,
the horizon of clothes in the facing closet,
the framed barnyard art, I must explain to you
this trip in the new millennium traveling
back and forth, home to home,
hearth to heartache, I must explain
to you elevators in hospitals, wheelchairs,
Dilantin, diapers, rehab, syringes, I must
explain to you this inconvenient grounding,
this entrapment, I must explain to you
my selfish complaint, this rapid downhill
spiral, a woman, head in hand, weeping.