A Poem For Sunday

“The Pillow” by Cyrus Cassells:

He touches her breasts, a sunburned neck, a back bent

from years in the fields.

And now she lifts to him in the moonlight

her belly, as pale

as a Nō mask—

It has been like this

for decades, the two of them

lying together on the futon:

See, their bodies have twisted

into an old branch.

From The Mud Actor © 1982 by Cyrus Cassells. Used by permission of the author. Photo by Andrea Addante