"Body of Book"
Listen to Rachel Hadas read this poem.
This is one way to talk about a book:
I woke into the locus of my body.
In sleep's thick envelope, what poems fit?
Dream-card sealed with a kiss and then sent out.
What we meant was musing, nothing else.
Did the dream not spring from memory?
Remembering who said what or what I read:
The sin of middle age, misattribution.
Cherished, it writes itself upon your skin.
I could tell the time of day without looking at the sun.
Salted with a tear and wiped and sent:
You take it with you to the land of sleep,
Body of book to read and to be read to,
Out into the world, its face still damp.
Cherished, it writes itself upon your skin.
You take it with you to the land of sleep.
Remembering who said what, or what I read,
I could tell the time of day without looking at the sun.
Body of book: to read and to be read to,
Salted with a tear and wiped and sent
(The sin of middle age, misattribution)
Out into the world, its face still damp,
Dream-card sealed with a kiss and then sent out
Until we all went wearily to bed.
I woke into the locus of my body
Where what we meant was kindness, nothing else.
Did the dream not spring from memory?
This is one way to talk about a book.
Rachel Hadas teaches English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University. Her new book is The Ache of Appetite, and she is co-editor of The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present.
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