(see:"How to live on Long Island", "The best hour of the Night")
He went back upstairs.
Susan said, "Did you put out the garbage?"
But her eyes were closed.
She was sleeping, yet could speak in her sleep,
ask a question, even answer one.
"yes", he said, and climbed into bed.
She turned around to face him,
with her eyes still closed.
He thought, perhaps she's an oracle,
speaking from the Collective Unconscious.
He said to her, "Do you agree with Darwin
that people and monkeys have a common ancestor?
Or should we stick to the Bible?"
She said, "Did you take out the garbage?"
"Yes", he said, for the second time.
Then thought about it. Her answer
had something in it of the sublime.
Like a koan...the kind of irrelevance
a Zen-master says to the disciple
who is asking riddles of the universe.
He put his arm around her,
and she continued to breathe evenly
from the depths of sleep.
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