Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, 2016; Bessey, 1968 by Bart Sides

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP, 2016

“It’s all about balance,”

Shirlene said,

Tying the surgical cord around

Her arm, with

Trembling fingers

And

Slipping the needle into a

Now exposed vein.

Easing the plunger down,

She smiled,

Beatific,

Before her liquid God

In the syringe.

And fell to the floor,

As visions of ecstasy

Faded from her

Now glassy

Eyes.

BESSEY, 1968

The Ford convertible’s impact with an oak

threw Bessey from the car,

bounced her once in the grass,

and set her,

conscious, unmarked, upright

in the ditch

where she realized she

could neither move nor

breathe.

Melting terror in eternal seconds,

she saw herself

through strands of hair her hands

could not brush back,

in ways we all do

no more than once:

a favorite skirt, torn,

draping her right thigh

across stocking welt and garter;

a math book, thrown open,

pages fluttering in the breeze

to work she would never do;

and as brain cells

one-by-one

began to die, the faces of

brother, mother, father

safely asleep in their beds

two hundred miles away.