The Two Anns Help Me Make My Bedwhen I am wasted and gone beyond
unsnaking the sheets from the clean heap,
soul-stunned enough to tip onto
a blank mattress and tug
a skinned duvet up to my ears.Sister to a quilting bee,
or a barn-raising, this moment —
all six hands stretching the cornered sheet
over the long tablet of the mattress,
all six hands evening out the top sheet
and pulling it over the foot so it stays,
all six hands steering the duvet
into its harbor and buttoning it to the mooring.Then out they go, my two Ann friends —
Ann of the poems
and Anne who keeps stories —
and I fall into a charmed rest,
ferried through the night
by the particular blessing
each has imparted
on the sleepy skies
of the pillow cases, cool and blue.