J. D. McClatchy's new volume of poems, Mercury Dressing, brings us fresh tales of the drama of love and its aftermath, exploring figures by turns heroic, operatic, and simply human.
 | Going Back to Bed Up early, trying to muffle
the sounds of small tasks,
grinding, pouring, riffling
through yesterday's attacks or market slump, then changing
my mind—what matter the rush
to the waiting room or the ring
of some later dubious excuse?— having decided to return to bed
and finding you curled in the sheet,
a dream fluttering your eyelids,
still unfallen, still asleep, I thought of the old pilgrim
when, among the fixed stars
in paradise, he sees Adam
suddenly, the first man, there in a flame that hides his body,
and when it moves to speak,
what is inside seems not free,
not happy, but huge and weak, like an animal in a sack.
Who had captured him?
What did he want to say?
I lay down beside you again, not knowing if I'd stay,
not knowing where I'd been.
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