Let me not lie here, mulling the day’s anger,
Rehearsing, if there have been such, its tears;
Let no bitterness beckon, envy linger;
Save me from Circe’s, Medusa’s, cruel stares.
Let me slip to Sleep’s Kingdom unencumbered
By guilt I don’t need, by guards who would ask me
For visas I’ve lost; let me enter unhindered
To where I’m at home: let no one suspect me.
May Kindness take charge then, to see that I’m dipped
In Oblivion’s warm baths; and when I emerge
Let me wander Love’s island, as one who is now
Released from Doubt’s dungeons, manumitted, at large.
Dick Davis‘s book of poems, A Trick of Sunlight, will be published by Swallow/Ohio in 2006.
