Soft Animal
listen

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
—Mary Oliver

sheets damp and scrambled,
a cool shawl draped across

fleshy outlines resting now,
stirring occasionally

to periodic chimes out-
side the window

in otherwise hushed
accents of unbodied

sleeping breath . . . in,
out . . . deeply in . . .

long prolonged out,
mouth to mouth

air intermingling,
co-op exchange

of gases between
sky and lungs,

blood and cells,
mystical synthesis

into energy and
embryonic tissue

and the dreamy calm
of braided quietude.

only hunger will
eventually wake

them again.

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Copyright © 2007 by Mary Ann Schaefer
All work owned by individual author and should not be reproduced without permission.