She wakens early remembering <br />her father rising in the dark <br />lighting the stove with a match <br />scraped on the floor. Then measuring <br />water for coffee, and later the smell <br />coming through. She would hear <br />him drying spoons, dropping <br />them one by one in the drawer. <br />Then he was on the stairs <br />going for the milk. So soon <br />he would be at her door <br />to wake her gently, he thought, <br />with a hand at her nape, shaking <br />to and fro, smelling of gasoline <br />and whispering. Then he left. <br />Now she shakes her head, shakes <br />him away and will not rise. <br />There is fog at the window <br />and thickening the high branches <br />of the sycamores. She thinks <br />of her own kitchen, the dishwasher <br />yawning open, the dripping carton <br />left on the counter. Her boys <br />have gone off steaming like sheep. <br />Were they here last night? <br />Where do they live? she wonders, <br />with whom? Are they home? <br />In her yard the young plum tree, <br />barely taller than she, drops <br />its first yellow leaf. She listens <br />and hears nothing. If she rose <br />and walked barefoot on the wood floor <br />no one would come to lead her <br />back to bed or give her <br />a glass ofwater. If she <br />boiled an egg it would darken <br />before her eyes. The sky tires <br />and turns away without a word. <br />The pillow beside hers is cold, <br />the old odor of soap is there. <br />Her hands are cold. What time is it?<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-woman-waking/
