Reunion
At last in bed at night they meet—
My feet.
Kay Sage
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
At last in bed at night they meet—
My feet.
The joke here lands in the very last line. The first four lines build up a small romantic scene: "at last," "in bed," "at night," two figures about to "meet." Everything about the phrasing suggests lovers coming together after a long wait. Then the dash arrives, the poem pauses, and the answer turns out to be the speaker's own feet. The two things meeting are simply her left foot and her right.
That swerve is the whole poem, and it works because it is so deflating. The speaker sounds relieved and a little cozy, the way you feel when you finally crawl under the covers after a long day. The word "reunion" in the title makes the feet sound like old friends separated for hours by shoes and socks, which is a gently silly way to put it.
The mood is dry, playful, and affectionate. It's a small private pleasure, told with a straight face, and the humor comes from how much the poem pretends to promise before it delivers something so ordinary.