Suchness

by Gretchen K. Phillips

 

The bed is high

And dressed with lacy pillows

On a mostly white quilt

Scattered with roses.

Yards of chintz, sateen, and organdy

Hang from the ceiling in poufs

That weave a flower-swagged crown

Then trail in excess yards

To puddle next to the bed posts.

It feels like the lap of Victorian dreams.

 

This bed makes me forget the

limp,

soiled,

ragged

edges of my uncompleted week that

want fluffing and washing and mending and

all kinds of other tending to.

 

In this bed I can only think of sipping tea

And lazily contemplating

Whether some of the motes

Floating in that yellow light

That filters through the curtain

Might be fairies.

 

 

April 2003 HPWP Writers’ Retreat in Lincoln, New Mexico