While Everyone Else Sleeps
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In small hours when the boy wakes crying,
the arms in the room next door will slowly rise

and enter the nursery. They gather the wailing one
from his crib and settle with him in the rocker.

Back and forth. Back and forth. The honey-warmth
from the nightlight. The sobs subside. Quiet,

and the boy molds into the familiar bend of the elbows,
leans his head in the hollow beneath the shoulder; shuts his eyes.

His breaths come easier now, steering him toward sleep.
The arms harbor him long after lullabies end,

a solid refuge for his bundled weight of flannel
and fear. And once he’s resettled in his crib,

a tattered brown puppy tucked near his head, the arms
return to the mother’s room, and cradle him still from another bed.