Linda Pastan
I wake to the small applause
of rain, then sleep again
and somewhere between dusk
and dawn a curtain falls and rises.
My dreams carry me
on their shifting backs
as if I were the round earth
balanced on the back of the tortoise
which pulls its head in now, safe and dry
within its perfect mosaic.
Listen: it is raining;
there is applause.
I must take my bows
and cross the swaying bridge, suspended
between sleep
and what is coming next.
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