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Kelley White
Hardbed Blues
I’m trying to learn to sleep by myself.
I’ve been trying to learn this for years.
I work hard all day then I turn out the light
but the nights in the city fall hard, so hard,
the night in the city falls hard.
I had a full bed for twenty, thirty years,
a man on my pillow each night, never knew
why I got left, never understood how it was right,
and the nights in the city fall hard, so hard,
and the night in the city falls hard.
Used to stretch out in the morning in the middle
of the bed, smiling when he left for work and I slept in
but now I work long days, longer nights, still,
the nights in the city fall hard, so hard,
the night in the city falls hard.
I just want one little favor before I die,
just one night folded up against
a warm back, a warm arm, a soft chest,
‘cause the nights in the city fall hard, so hard,
the night in the city falls hard.
His head is covered like a shepherd’s
in dark blue cloth, he’s Joseph,
waiting on a plastic chair
with an uncombed Mary and three
daughters—Indiya, Asia,
and newborn Imani (she’s Faith,
in, I think, Swahili, but it might be Urdu
or Arabic) it’s December 28th,
they’ve come from the shelter,
the big girls, two and three,
have pink naked dolls, Imani’s wrapped
in strips of torn flannel—
sponge bob pajamas, she’s
too young to smile but her sisters
don’t know that, the climb on tiptoe
to stroke her face, they’re giggling,
Joseph’s snoring, the mother’s eyes
are open but she’s sleeping too.
©2005 by Kelley White
A New Hampshire native, Kelley White studied at
Dartmouth College and Harvard Medical School and has
been a pediatrician in inner-city Philadelphia for
more than twenty years. Her poems have been widely
published over the past five years, including several
book collections and chapbooks, and have appeared in
numerous journals, including Exquisite Corpse, Nimrod,
Poet Lore, Rattle, and the Journal of the American
Medical Association.
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