Ode to Pajamas

I think of how your feet might slap the cold morning floor
how the toes tuck and curl from the light
the simple fray along the cuff of your cotton pajama bottoms
seams mapping treasure's flesh, cool air
floating through the loosened fly
the slink and pout of one arm finds the bathroom wall
the hits of water into a basin
your fingers beached in soft-soap loam.
You crack under the weight of one knee
and nod down to straighten a lip of sock.
Night ending its dog nose chill.
Night ending its two-fisted endurance.
Night with teeth like light backing into your knees.

This is where I lose you—
in the absence of your waking moments,
the door widening, the slope of your nose
made pink by sleep, water, another woman's light.

I imagine you
waking up—
I imagine the earth would shudder
under a starry sorrow, snow flaking the tree in the window,
as she pulls back her shy eyes
so you can pass.

Laura Minor currently runs a three-ring circus of poetry, music, and academia. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently working on her first collection of poems. She has published numerous poems in journals and small print mags, but chooses to spend the bulk of her time writing 3-chord country songs. A musician as well as an academic minion at the University of Florida, she is currently working in feminist musicology positioning Gertrude Stein, Yoko Ono, and Björk in a reception study with hysterical woman as the central metaphor. She released a record entitled, .Salesman.s Girl. in 2002 for Hightone Records and her solo debut is forthcoming in the Spring of 2005.