Bad Night

NaPoWriMo April 17: write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet.

Bad Night, by Elizabeth Boquet

Here I hide between the sheets
and hand my soul to Night for keeps.
I wish it may—I wish Night might
close its fist right quick tonight—
knock me out ’til morning light.

Surely someone, somewhere, can come up with a less terrifying poem for kids to recite before sleep than, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Of course, there’s the more positive, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight,” but you’d have to take the kids outside—which would wake them up, and the weather would have to be just right.

Here, I’ve tried to address both poems in one swoop, after…you guessed it…a bad night.