Twice I awoke this night, and went <br />to the window. The streetlamps were <br />a fragment of a sentence spoken in sleep, <br />leading to nothing, like omission points, <br />affording me no comfort and no cheer. <br />I dreamt of you, with child, and now, <br />having lived so many years apart from you, <br />experienced my guilt, and my hands, <br />joyfully stroking your belly, <br />found they were fumbling at my trousers <br />and the light-switch. Shuffling to the window, <br />I realized I had left you there alone, <br />in the dark, in the dream, where patiently <br />you waited and did not blame me, <br />when I returned, for the unnatural <br />interruption. For in the dark <br />that which in the light has broken off, lasts; <br />there we are married, wedded, we play <br />the two-backed beast; and children <br />justify our nakedness. <br />On some future night you will again <br />come to me, tired, thin now, <br />and I shall see a son or daughter, <br />as yet unnamed -- this time I'll <br />not hurry to the light-switch, nor <br />will I remove my hand; because I've not the right <br />to leave you in that realm of silent <br />shadows, before the fence of days, <br />falling into dependence from a reality <br />containing me -- unattainable.<br /><br />Joseph Brodsky<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-1826/
