The opals hiding your lids <br /> as you sleep, as you ride ponies <br />mysteriously, spring to bloom <br /> like the blue flowers of autumn <br /> <br />each nine o'clock. And curls <br /> tumble languorously towards <br />the yawning rubber band, tan, <br /> your hand pressing all that <br /> <br />riotous black sleep into <br /> the quiet form of daylight <br />and its sunny disregard for <br /> the luminous volutions, oh! <br /> <br />and the budding waltzes <br /> we swoop through in nights. <br />Before dawn you roar with <br /> your eyes shut, unsmiling, <br /> <br />your volcanic flesh hides <br /> everything from the watchman, <br />and the tendrils of dreams <br /> strangle policemen running by <br /> <br />too slowly to escape you, <br /> the racing vertiginous waves <br />of your murmuring need. But <br /> he is day's guardian saint <br /> <br />that policeman, and leaning <br /> from your open window you ask <br />him what to dress to wear and <br /> to comb your hair modestly, <br /> <br />for that is now your mode. <br /> Only by chance tripping on stairs <br />do you repeat the dance, and <br /> then, in the perfect variety of <br /> <br />subdued, impeccably disguised, <br /> white black pink blue saffron <br />and golden ambiance, do we find <br /> the nightly savage, in a trance.<br /><br />Frank O'Hara<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jane-awake/
