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Assurance

Carla M. Cherry

If they didn’t have Mommy’s dresser
propped against their door,

I would peek into my parents’ room
if I woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t rest

unless Daddy was home.
He was 6'3, broad in the shoulder, gentle, unless

someone disrespected, threatened harm to
family, friends, a teacher, a woman, a child.

Sometimes I would slip under the cover
on the right side of the bed where Daddy slept,

smirk when he walked in grumbling about the sleep-stiff daughter in his way,
after a long day of loading luggage on airplanes, fixing people’s cars for extra cash.

After he shook me awake and shooed me
back in my room, I would fall asleep, properly safe.

He is gone, in eternal rest. I am grown.
Still awaken in the middle of the night.

Sometimes I fall back asleep,
but never as soundly as the little girl when her daddy was home.

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