10pm


All those restless years of lying in bed
with newly-minted teeth, laughter
and the MASH theme rerunning up the stairs
A bedtime timeline that hived off the youngest child –
whispering spelling homework, petty playground anxieties,
into the hall-light half-dark

How I’d wish for the hot stab of an earache,
some small latenight affliction, to admit me
to that wonderland of big sisters and grown ups,
the bag of jujubes passed along the chesterfield
and Hawkeye and Hot Lips with their khaki slapstick

Even now I still hear the phantom:
da-daaaah de de de daah-daah
But there’s no 4077 on channel 12
only cheap Hollywood gossip, reality plastic surgery
There’s no magic left in 10pm, just weeknight ache,
the sticky littered sidewalk after a parade’s gone by