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Draft of a Dream

By Steven Cramer b. 1953 Steven Cramer

The message I found on the Post-it note

went thus: love truth; expect to be found out.

Kid-style capitals proved I wrote it, but

left no clue why I'd swelled into a fat

clause no editor could edit; then, an entry

on a shrink's list of patient slang for sex—

her desk Norwegian teak, the mug of tea

on which she had affixed her Post-it notes

hot against her knuckle, their lips of stickum

loosening . . . And yet, I knew the note

to peel away at hour's end would terminate

our sessions—cool as the draft her linen

skirt was lifting to: Love, just stay benighted,

given everything I know you've got to hide.

Source: Poetry (June 2003).

Biography

Steven Cramer was born in Orange, New Jersey, and educated at Antioch College and the University of Iowa. His collections of poetry include The Eye that Desires to Look Upward (1987); The World Book (1992); Dialogue for the Left and Right Hand (1997); Goodbye to the Orchard (2004), which won the 2005 Sheila Motton Prize and was named an Honor Book in Poetry by the Massachusetts Center for the Book; and Clangings (2012), a . . .

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