Joseph Brodsky

Here you will find the Poem Love of poet Joseph Brodsky

Love

Twice I awoke this night, and went 
to the window. The streetlamps were 
a fragment of a sentence spoken in sleep, 
leading to nothing, like omission points, 
affording me no comfort and no cheer.
I dreamt of you, with child, and now, 
having lived so many years apart from you, 
experienced my guilt, and my hands, 
joyfully stroking your belly, 
found they were fumbling at my trousers
and the light-switch. Shuffling to the window, 
I realized I had left you there alone, 
in the dark, in the dream, where patiently 
you waited and did not blame me, 
when I returned, for the unnatural
interruption. For in the dark 
that which in the light has broken off, lasts; 
there we are married, wedded, we play 
the two-backed beast; and children 
justify our nakedness.
On some future night you will again 
come to me, tired, thin now, 
and I shall see a son or daughter, 
as yet unnamed -- this time I'll 
not hurry to the light-switch, nor
will I remove my hand; because I've not the right 
to leave you in that realm of silent 
shadows, before the fence of days, 
falling into dependence from a reality 
containing me -- unattainable.