The One Thing in Life by Gerald Stern
Wherever I go now I lie down on my own bed of straw
and bury my face in my own pillow.
I can stop in any city I want to
and pull the stiff blanket up to my chin.
It’s easy now, walking up a flight of carpeted stairs
and down a hall past the painted fire doors.
It’s easy bumping my knees on a rickety table
and bending down to a tiny sink.
There is a sweetness buried in my mind;
there is water with a small cave behind it;
there’s a mouth speaking Greek.
It is what I keep to myself, what I return to;
the one thing that no one else wanted.