A Poem Inspired by Bedtime

We Boys and Girls

Sleep:

He quiets to him

and she to me.

At night, his exploding boy energy needs

a man’s stern strength

for still and calm.

Where my gentleness elicits endless negotiations,

his fears are quelled by his father’s tall frame, large hands and whispered prayers.

Yet she,

in her rosebud, chrysalis of a body,

lost in layers of soft blankets and fat,

she, quiets to my hands.

She takes my song, my scent and

melts sleep heavy against my bones

until I am undone by her trust.

We are gloriously different, Him and I,

(as are they, the he and she we’ve put to sleep this night)

and though our love wears different hands, uses a different voice and
speaks with different words,

We are we.

We are as fiercely we as they are fiercely ours.

And in the end, when the day is done;

I quiet to him

and he to me.