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"Where You Go When She Sleeps"
What is it when a woman sleeps, her head bright In your lap, in your hands, her breath easy now as though it had never been Anything else, and you know she is dreaming, her eyelids Jerk, but she is not troubled, it is a dream That does not include you, but your are not troubled either, It is too good to hold her while she sleeps, her hair falling Richly on your hands, shining like metal, a color That when you think of it you cannot name, as though it has just Come into existence, dragging you into the world in the wake Of its creation, out of whatever vacuum you were in before, And you are like the boy you heard of once before who fell Into a silo of oats, the silo emptying from below, oats At the top swirling in a gold whirlpool, a bright eddy of grain, the boy, You imagine, leaning over the edge to see it, the noon sun breaking Into the center of the circle he watches, hot on his back, burning And he forgets his father's warning, stands on the edge, looks down, The grain spinning, dizzy, and when he falls his arms go out, too thin For wings, and he hears his father's cry somewhere, but is gone Already, down in a gold sea, spun deep in the heart of the silo, And when they find him, his mouth, his heart, his lungs Full of the gold that took him, he lies still, not seeing the world Through his body but through the deep rush of the grain Where he has gone and can never come back, though they drag him Out, his father's tears bright on both their faces, the farmhands Standing by blank and amazed—you touch that unnamable Color in her hair and you are gone into what is not fear or joy But a whirling of sunlight and water and air full of shining dust That takes you, a dream that is not of you but will let you Into itself if you love enough, and will not, will never let you go.
—T.R. Hummer
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