it loved to happen

Waking Up

But what woke just now at fifty-two years in narrow
Dormitory bed, clock on a chair, underpulse
Air-conditioning, damp tangle of dream plumage

Its afterbirth nimbus—night thong and mandible?
Possibly for a few seconds not more professor or
Poet or parent or writing conference pooh-bah

Than animal emigrant from those featherlands—the screen
Of boxes, the alleyway weeping, the black iceberg,
The garden deception, the fuck, the floating

Manhattan. Or naked, possibly for a second this vivid
Green moth smaller than a numeral, distinct, animula,
Alert visionless trembler, blundering in the light.

—Robert Pinsky