We’re In a Love Song

you tell me I spend too much time asleep
in the caressing addiction of my duvet
and that the dreams won’t spare me
from the truths that consciousness must give to me
the moment I am accidentally
by something that must be boringly civil
revived

I wake into the conduct of sensation
and rub my eyes and there it is
a decade old bird on my sill
washed by a flight sad and holy
framed with its moleskin beak tender black
stirred by its own giant lungs
like the milky way stirs the stars
stirs even to the rain who despite itself
cannot stop falling

quickly I think of how we argued
how we pressed our lips together across the room
then remind myself selfishly
because it hurts to think of how I must look
when I am naked and angry
that now
the night before is gone

and then I stand and walk around
and remind myself how much you love me
though sometimes you are ashamed of me
and how I love you because of this intelligence
because of this ability to see me imperfectly
and how I wish
even when you are not home
that I could put you around me
like I put around me my clothes

the difference is I could never
fall in love with my clothes
and I guess in a sacred irony
that’s because my clothes
could never be ashamed

yes the difference is my clothes
could never be ashamed

they are too stupid and numb