Sunday #1

Okay, this isn't great.  Sorry!  Last minute and all.  Easter and stuff.  I'll get it together for the next go-around.

Not my bed


A cold basement, furniture
rearranged and the burden
of memories ingrained

in the old wood, a thing
of the past.  I slept
on a couch, the worn brown

leather and rickety, thin
metal frame familiar
from college days, morning

bleeding into afternoons
through fading eyes and
a mumbling haze, more

familiar than the bed
in my old room,
a bed I grew up

with, but never used,
mornings still distant
from the noon, waking

early and wondering
if my parents were
still there, in their

bed.  Somehow, now my bed.
The lights, compartments,
rich wood and mirrors.

Once a blackboard above
their sleeping heads
and I crept in to taste

the candy on its sill.
I wanted what they had hid
from me.  The candy was chalk,

and I, a young glutton.
Never eat something unknowns,
the only lesson of this bed.

No, this bed has no
memory of my own sleep,
and I, only memories

of being awake near
its towering presence.
I'll sleep on the couch again.