Bodega | You There in Bed Still Sleeping

You There in Bed Still Sleeping

Any minute now, I am going to fall more and more in love

With every encounter in my world. The stinkbug on the ceiling,

The mouse in the ceiling joist, the linden that died over the winter.

Any minute now, the spring that will never arrive will be my friend

And the dream of the angel with the flaming sword who keeps

Me from returning home. Any minute now, I will stop writing

letters to the governor and telling him where he has failed

to meet his obligations and I will sit gladly under the rain fly

of everything I don’t understand. Any minute now I assure you

everything in my world and yours will be regarded as sacrament.

The locked door, the open window, you there in bed still sleeping.

J.P. White has published essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry in many places including The Nation, The New Republic, The Gettysburg Review, Agni Review, Catamaran, APR, Salamander, Catamaran, North American Review, Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, Water-Stone, The New York Times, Willow Springs, Crazyhorse, and Poetry (Chicago). He is the author of five books of poems, a novel, Every Boat Turns South, www.jpwhitebooks.net. Screen credit for Moving Parts. He is also editor-at-large for Plant-Human Quarterly.

124 – March 2023

By J.P. White

You There in Bed Still Sleeping