For I can snore like a bullhorn <br />or play loud music <br />or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman <br />and Fergus will only sink deeper <br />into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash, <br />but let there be that heavy breathing <br />or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house <br />and he will wrench himself awake <br />and make for it on the run--as now, we lie together, <br />after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies, <br />familiar touch of the long-married, <br />and he appears--in his baseball pajamas, it happens, <br />the neck opening so small he has to screw them on-- <br />and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep, <br />his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child. <br /> <br />In the half darkness we look at each other <br />and smile <br />and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body-- <br />this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making, <br />sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake, <br />this blessing love gives again into our arms.<br /><br />Galway Kinnell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-making-love-we-hear-footsteps-audio-only/
