furnished rooms, flats, a hayloft,
a tent, motels, under a table,
under an overturned rowboat, in a villa (briefly) but not,
as yet, a yurt. In these places
he has slept, eaten,
put his forehead to the window glass,
looking out. He’s in a stilt-house now,
the water passing beneath him half the day;
the other half it’s mud. The tides
do this: they come, they go,
while he sleeps, eats, puts his forehead
to the window glass.
He’s moving soon: his trailer to a trailer park,
or to the priory to live among the penitents
but in his own cell,
with wheels, to take him, when it’s time
to go, to: boathouse, houseboat
with a little motor, putt-putt,
to take him across the sea
or down the river
where at night, anchored by a sandbar
at the bend,
he will eat, sleep, and press his eyelids
to the window
of the pilothouse
until the anchor-hauling hour
when he’ll embark again
toward his sanctuary, harborage, saltbox,
home.
(Thomas Lux)
More Poetry from Thomas Lux:
Thomas Lux Poems based on Topics: Night, Sleep, Home, Water- Refrigerator, 1957 (Thomas Lux Poems)
- The Road That Runs Beside The River (Thomas Lux Poems)
- Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City (Thomas Lux Poems)
- Henry Clay's Mouth (Thomas Lux Poems)
- Gorgeous Surfaces (Thomas Lux Poems)
- Virgule (Thomas Lux Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Night Poems, Home Poems, Sleep Poems, Water PoemsBased on Keywords: anchored, furnished, villa, motor, penitents, embark, overturned, priory, sandbar, hayloft, rowboat
- Book III - Part 03 - The Soul is Mortal (Lucretius Poems)
- Out Of The East (John Freeman Poems)
- Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto III. (Matthew Prior Poems)
- Of The Nature Of Things: Book II - Part 03 - Atomic Forms And Their Combinations (Lucretius Poems)
- Rhodon And Iris. Act III (Ralph Knevet Poems)