The old man and the old cat sleep in bed 
like puzzle pieces, birds hunched together 
on a winter branch, like peanut butter 
and jelly and cheese and macaroni. 
When the man turns on his side, then the cat 
curls in the concave bay of his body 
like a boat at anchor, a crescent moon. 

If sleep is the best meditation, then 
man and cat meditate like midnight monks,
swamis in nirvana. Their dreams tangle 
like mating snakes and spiraling tendrils. 
And when the cat wakes from his breakfast dream,
one of his favorite dreams (and the man’s too), 
they teamwork to make this dream come true. 

After retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University Library, John Delaney moved out to Port Townsend, WA, and has traveled widely, preferring remote, natural settings. Since that transition, he has published Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook,  Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, and Galápagos (2023), a collaborative chapbook of his son Andrew’s photographs and his own poems. Nile, a chapbook of poems and photographs about Egypt, will appear in May.