A day in bed with Aunt Maud

Quadrant, Dec, 2006 by Elizabeth Smither

A DAY IN BED WITH AUNT MAUD

   My dear high-foreheaded aunt, good
   at sums and attentive to all that love
   demands, loved a day in bed.

   No illness drove her there, or fever
   no drenched nightgown, twisted
   but the bliss of a day in bed.

   She lay, she slept, she reached out
   a hand towards an improving book
   she closed its covers on her day in bed.

   She contemplated the plaster ceiling rose
   and all the world that swam around it
   a spider web from her day in bed.

   She lay like someone in a shroud, proud
   of her stretched toes, her spine
   bearing not this day on her day in bed.

   She took some rations, delicate things
   and a jug of fresh-made squash
   she dined daintily during her day in bed.

   What did you get? the others asked.
   A firmer view of the world, she said
   through lying down on my day in bed

   and love and anything you care to ask.
   They never did. Away they sped.
   She contemplated them from her day in bed.