Judith Askew’s most recent poem to appear here was “Generational Inattention” (May 2018). 

The Coming of Comfort
By Judith Askew

A chair seats us aloft above direct contact with a floor,
but not floating above it, cross-legged, like a sultan
hovering over a Persian carpet in his seraglio,
which we might have seen on the cover of a tin
of Turkish sweets. We settled, haunches flush to cushion

or more comfortably on a high-backed, velvet-tufted
throne like a king. And our beds—tempurpedic
or sleep-numbered—are a long step up
from straw on mats. Our sense of ourselves
might hover, roving back and forth

between an athlete taught to tough it out
and a celeb protected from jostling in a limo.
We are tossed between warnings of hell-stoked
self-indulgence and hours-long sermons seated
in high-backed wooden pews, tapped awake

by sleeper-minders. Finally, tired of such extremes,
our desire for comfort comes wrapped in an aging package.
We don’t dream of being a Chekhovian soldier asleep
on the hut floor, snow drifting through an open door.
We are kinder to ourselves, no longer push for a last run

down the ski slope murky with shadows, muscles clutched
in fatigue. We gather together our fortitudes
and reward ourselves at the end of the day
with a slipper of soft leather, a glass of fine wine,
and a soft-centered, after-dinner chocolate.