What is it when a woman sleeps, her head bright

In your lap, in your hands, her breath easy now as though it had

never been

Anything else, and you know she is dreaming, her eyelids

Jerk, but she is not troubled, it is a dream

That does not include you, but you are not troubled either,

It is too good to hold her while she sleeps, her hair falling

Richly on you hands, shining like metal, a color

That when you think of it you cannot name, as though it has just

Come into existence, dragging you into the world in the wake

Of its creation, out of whatever vacuum you were in before,

And you are like the boy you heard of once who fell

Into a silo full of oats, the silo emptying from below, oats

At the top swirling in a gold whirlpool, a bright eddy of grain, the boy,

You imagine, leaning over the edge to see it, the noon sun breaking

Into the center of the circle he watches, hot on his back, burning

And he forgets his father’s warning, stands on the edge, looks down,

The grain spinning, dizzy, and when he falls his arms go out, too thin

For wings, and he hears his father’s cry somewhere, but is gone

Already, down in a gold sea, spun deep in the heart of the silo,

And when they find him, his mouth, his throat, his lungs

Full of the gold that took him, he lies still, not seeing the world

Through his body but through the deep rush of the grain

Where he has gone and can never come back, though they drag him

Out, his father’s tears bright on both their faces, the farmhands

Standing by blank and amazed — you touch that unnamable

Color in her hair and you are gone into what is not fear or joy

But a whirling of sunlight and water and air full of shining dust

That takes you, a dream that is not of you but will let you

Into itself if you love enough, and will not, will never let you go.