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To Paul

When you gave me a painting of hammocks,
I knew:

The dreamer tells the truth, the self awake
does not.

For years I raged against the images
you drew.

How they stared, gloomy shrouds, whenever I
forgot.

To rest, be still—I swore that was a way
of death.

Yet find more lives in sleep than I have years
ahead.

THE HOUSE OF SLEEP