The tea is always on for napping.
She is kindly calm as lambssleeping 
in grassy comfort with a moonlight blanket,
a flowing wrap around her lamp lit home

where we know a gentle offering of foods, 
her easy embrace, then quickly off to bed 
because we’ve no head for beer or strawberry wine;
this she knows without judgment.

At the two o’clock hour into the bedroom she creeps, 
where she pulls back the sheets, with a sudden quickness 
for someone so slow. The skin barely keeps up 
with her bones, she steps in hushed tones tender.

Do you need something? Anything at all?
Watermelonapples? Prunes? Starfruit?
A sweetglass of linden tea? An apricot? Some grapes? 
Some fried steak and potatoes?  Ovaltine?

She gasps almost musically, “What is that my boy?  
A scratch? Had it been a brawl?”
Then she smiles because it doesn’t matter,
all are finally safe at home with her.

She edges out of the bedroom disappointed,
a parakeet gliding down the face of a cage.
She goes back to her armchair in a clip-clap, 
tip-toe to the lightest of one-eyed sleeps.