How to Be Alone
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”
Love this. The ending made me…gasp, want to cry…it gets you in the gut.
Heart-rending. So powerful and so brief.
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.