Sunday Poetry

Instructions To A War Tax Resister Sleeping

It’s tax time by the clock—
just after midnight. Upstairs
you dream of my step-mother,
the politician. So I am in the kitchen
piling ashes: I find recess in forms
bent into the envelope.

Alone with my flat pumpkin,
a bulge at the curb, heelfoot bare—
I revel in the numbers
I saw (behind all bombs lies
the patience of paper).

When you rise, come down,
you’ll see it there—put on
your glasses—the pre-printed envelope
lapses on the tabletop. And—be wary—
I am cinderful. We sleep together
at the heart of preparation.

by Alison Mandaville

from Poets Against War.