Last Night’s Hypnagogia (Becca’s Version)

When you’re a woman without children
people like to suggest you’re missing
an entire fabric of experience
perhaps an entire hope chest of exotic fabrics
in many colors of experience
all the while never considering that they
might be missing the lavender microfiber fitted sheet
of being tucked in every night by your boyfriend
who lives with you like a groundsman or governess
who remembers the lines and ditties
the nonsense and jokes that go too far
you mumble as you drift off to sleep
who turns out the light and emails you
so it’s waiting for you in the morning:

i took a hundred photos
in the alley
back and forth
the sun setting and unsetting
over the hill

(who even hears the lines break
as you drift off. . . .)

I started taking selfies in the alley just behind our house,
a low point, the sun dipping just past the horizon,
then walked to Gilbert, a high point, where it rose again
(“unsetting” might be better—was that my word
or his? oh but it was Easter! “rose again” is good, too)
and then I left the alley and cut over to Brown Street:
at the top of the hill, the sun hung right over Hancher
and as I sharply descended it sank behind
that big ship of an auditorium across the river
and I decided to chase it, crossing Dubuque,
no one expecting me home, standing on the bridge
in the glow left by a sun done unsetting,
smiling and smiling until I got the shot