Pickup Poem Day 22

Mattress

Began as bale-straw on cat's cradle. 

Good enough for grateful backs

of the men on gilded Slept Here plaques

and wives bent to the shape of their ladles.

Then came sheepskin, then quilted tuft,

then row on row of eager springs

at attention, like the terra-cotta Qins

who knew duty in life alone is not enough.

Everything new went wrong this century--

bubbles, or jaws to bend a bed as craft

paper. Even water, to tremble-dream like rafts.

But mostly: damn the one who gave us memory.