An excerpt from

Running in Prospect Cemetary: New and Selected Poems
by Susan Glickman

When They are Asleep in their Nimbus of Flame

the heart no longer asks for permission,
it loves what it loves. "Holy, holy!"
it exults over the chaste swell
of buttocks, the curve of shoulders
round in their sockets like eyeballs
scrolling the landscape of dreams;
like the pillowed heads, the knees flexed
against morning's exertions,
its staircases and adieux.

But when they are asleep they are wholly
here, cupped in my hands like sweet water.
My son, too old to bathe with his mother
whose limbs still remember that merriment, that
slippery grace. My daughter, who brushes away
her own tangles, and won't wear what I, longingly,
lay out. My husband, curled into himself --
boyish, startled, alone --
each one so alone in sleep.

The house groans and ticks through the lengthening night.
I drink tea, tidy things up, ask for permission
for a few hours more of this love.