Loft Bed

In the two-room, graduate-school apartment,

one-eighth of a brownstone whose only virtue was eleven-foot ceilings,

my new husband,

despondent at the little space,

with a cousin designed and built

a loft bed.

At first, I thought, How innovative, creative, even genius!

Thick wooden planks solid and rich,

matching ladder naughtily bohemian for staid doctoral candidates.

He was proud, elated.

But making the bed required the skills and muscle tone

of an advanced yoga master.

And during sleep, if in the night a pimple broke through on your nose,

it grazed the ceiling.

One morning, suspecting the rest of my life tied to

his incessant impossible highs and lows,

I climbed down the ladder

and walked out.