CarrollBlog 5.16

The Night House

by Billy Collins

Every day the body works in the fields of the world

Mending a stone wall

Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass—

The grass of civics, the grass of money—

And every night the body curls around itself

And listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises

From the body in the middle of the night,

Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom

With its thick, pictureless walls

To sit by herself at the kitchen table

And heat some milk in a pan.

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