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Poetry | April 2010

How to Be Alone

By Julie Bruck

Night-time is for sleeping, we’d chant
To set the clock, to relax her fisted hold
On the crib bars, the minute terry-bound feet
Testing their new purchase on the mattress.
We were teaching independence, self-soothing,
How to be alone. If that fails, the book
Advised, There is no more today, a phrase
So thick with terror, it took hold immediately.
Baby slips off the ledge and we stand by.
She sank into the dark without a cry.

3 replies on “How to Be Alone”

Michelle Hesssays:
May 16, 2010 at 8:52 pm

Love this. The ending made me…gasp, want to cry…it gets you in the gut.

Reply
Melissasays:
June 4, 2010 at 8:32 am

Heart-rending. So powerful and so brief.

Reply
Cigdem Cetinsays:
November 4, 2011 at 9:24 am

No baby would want this earth if they knew they would be left to sleep the dark coldness of a lonely sleep. Babies are born to sleep in the warmth of a mother’s (or a father’s) loving chest.

Reply

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