Nancy Scott McBride’s most recent poem to appear here was “Therapy” (January 2018).

Bedtime
By Nancy Scott McBride

When I was young
and Mother put me to bed,
she’d often take the top sheet,
snap it high in the air and
let it billow over me like a cloud.
She always laughed when she did this,
and it gave her such pleasure that I
never said how I hated the flying lint
getting in my eyes, up my nose,
and sticking to my lips.
We never got along when I was growing up:
She was critical and I was angry.
But now that I’m old and down with the flu,
I’d give anything for that much-maligned
woman to come into my lonely room,
snatch up the sheet and shake it above me,
then let it settle like a blessing before she
tucked it in and made me safe for the night.