My beloved hums Haydn
at the oddest junctures of night.
At 3 AM, rising

to relieve myself, one hand
a brace against bathroom-tile,
I hear her countless movements,

the familiar nasal whine of her sleep.
When I step back
toward bed,

enlivened, I strip
the sheets that tangle
her legs' spastic capoeira.

Strapping honêtte homme, as Haydn was—
and equally pockmarked, and beginning
to fall into my music—

I am relearning home.
I settle, spread
sheets and quilt over us,

hum the steep intervals of intimacy
in her folded ear; and rather
than drifting, she wakes.

She glances at the clock, at me,
murmurs something about allergies, needing me
to stand up, grab some water, some water . . .

But she is still quince on the tongue, bletted
of birthright astringency.
Now and again she hums a little Surprise; I search

her head for musical
bumps of phrenology, the kind it's said
Haydn had, when friends examined

his stolen head.
More and more, my love is like the punctured
ostrich-egg in the drawer—the birthing

wound in its shell (a gift
from Saudi Arabia, from an uncle
in the dunes of war):

strange to think that missing
such a small bit of something could leave
its whole so hollow.

I look for a comfortable future:
mornings and evenings, years and years of coping-
saw dances along our geometry,

and always a heavy stomp
toward bed—contrition for my silence—
and a well-rehearsed kiss

as we're swallowed
by the mattress we wear
our sags into.

Like the trapunto of our marriage quilt,
her smile fills her face
with flesh to near-bursting.

But sometimes, no matter how I make
the bed in the morning,
when I'm away, she corrects me.