Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Rita Dove read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.

There's a movie on, so I watch it.

The usual white people

in love, distress. The usual tears.

Good camera work, though:

sunshine waxing the freckled curves

of a pear, a clenched jaw—

more tragedy, then.




I get up for some scotch and Stilton.

I don’t turn on the lights.

I like moving through the dark

while the world sleeps on,

serene as a stealth bomber

nosing through clouds ...

call it a preemptive strike,

“a precautionary measure

so sadly necessary in these perilous times.”

I don’t call it anything

but greediness: the weird glee

of finding my way without incident.

I know tomorrow I will regret

having the Stilton. I will regret

not being able to find

a book to get lost in,

and all those years I could get lost

in anything. Until then

it’s just me and you,

Brother Night—moonless,

plunked down behind enemy lines

with no maps, no matches.

The woods deep.

Cheers.