Adrienne Rich - White Night lyrics

Light at a window someone up
At this snail-still hour
We who work this way have often worked
In solitude i’ve had to guess at her
Sewing her skin together as I sew mine
Though with a different
Stitch

Dawn after dawn, this neighbor
Burns like a candle
Dragging her bedspread through the dark house
To her dark bed her head
Full of runes, syllables, refrains
This accurate dreamer

Sleepwalks the kitchen like a white moth
An elephant, a guilt
Somebody tried to put her to
Rest under an afghan
Knitted with wools the color
Of grass and blood

But she has risen her lamplight
Licks at the icy panes
And melts into the dawn
They will never prevent her
Who sleep the stone sleep of the past
The sleep of the drugged
One crystal second, I flash

An eye across the cold
Unwrapping of light between us
Into her darkness lancing eye
That’s all dawn is the test, the agony
But we were meant to see it:
After this, we may sleep, my sister
While the flames rise higher and higher
We can sleep