Sleep
was pure distraction.
A trick played on you.
Sometimes a song or hypnotic chant
to conjure the night’s quiet.
Mothers tisked, tisked.
Warning of a reckoning.
We didn’t care. We had you safe in our house.
I got drunk and said
that you were the heart inside my heart.
The premise is:
a baby will manipulate you
a baby will manipulate you
I took first year psychology
I know about projection.
Soon you came to know us
my face her voice our breath
light leapt from your eyes
And in that knowing, nothing was the same.
Each night as you woke
fear came on. Panic.
But we were next door,
ever your volunteers.
Exhaustion is confusing.
It can never come, until it does.
Could you ever know all the tears and anger that turned
on your circadian rhythm?
Your training began as a marathon of pain.
Your cries hurt, the heart
inside my heart.
Apparently sleep is a learned skill.
I was told that all good lessons cost us dearly.
Reaching out to the door,
calling out horse, scared.
Was there knowing in your voice?
I don’t know about that.
Any of that.
Soon you slept and soothed yourself.
Without us.
in spite of us.
Occasionally I go in to turn the sheets
and make my nightly manipulations.
Really like this – good job.