LUCID WAKING
from Eve (1997)
by Annie Finch (b. 1956)

Once I wanted the whole dawn not to let me
sleep. One morning, then, I awoke and watched as
waking woke me, came slipping up through half-light
crying softly, a cat leaving her corner,
stretching, tall in the new gray air of morning,
raising paws much too high. She came slow-stepping
down the hallway to crouch, to call, to answer
through the door, making still and slow the dawning
once so bird ridden --and the sun, the curtains--