Bedtime Story

For most of my childhood

a foreboding kept me
from sleep. I’d close my eyes

and see tectonic blacktop

shifting and cracking,

shifting, cracking.

Mother hushed me to halcyon

with stories
of a howler monkey in Belize,

dangling

from Banana trees.

Father
with jealousy
told me it was his
tale and his
idea and
what made the pressure
in my mind release was his

imagination.

But when I think of him, all
I can remember is the warmth

under his arm where I
would huddle when all
I wanted was silence
and when stories would
not suffice,
we covered our heads
with the blanket, pretending

the world was blank, silent,

and whole.