Not to go to bed
but to stay the night there,
we have to work out
who gets which.
Whose habit’s stronger
decides, except
in the happy case
where bents agree.
This is universal. Yet we have
no common language
for which is which.
North or East won’t do,
nearer the bathroom and
beside the lamp fall
short of the particular
variety among beds.
We want to say just right or left,
but whose, and lying
face up or down? We figure
all this geography
out, as we must.
It may take talk—
all to the good,
being what we do best.
Charles O. Hartman has published eight collections of poetry, including Downfall of the Straight Line (Arrowsmith Press, forthcoming 2024), as well as books on jazz and song (Jazz Text, Princeton 1991) and on computer poetry (Virtual Muse, Wesleyan 1996). His Free Verse (Princeton 1981) is still in print (Northwestern 1996), and Verse: An Introduction to Prosody was published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2015. In 2020 he co-edited, with Martha Collins, Pamela Alexander, and Matthew Krajniak, a volume on Wendy Battin for the Unsung Master series. He is Poet in Residence Emeritus at Connecticut College. He plays jazz guitar.
