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# Recipe for Sleep
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/recipe-for-sleep/
- Published: 2026-10-29T16:45:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-29T16:45:02.000Z
- Description: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
- Author: MW Editors
- Tags: Poetry, Arts

Watch the ceiling fan carefully  
for any sudden movement.

Waltz across the living room.

Pet the cat. Go outside and test  
the weather. Come inside  
and get another blanket.

Listen to the hum in everything.

Avoid the light. Imagine the shade  
under a stand of hot pink hollyhocks.

If you still can’t sleep, get up.  
Rock in a rocking chair. Read a little  
of a very long memoir set in Algeria  
or a story set on a spacecraft to Jupiter.

Wait until you’re so tired  
you’ve outwitted the six-year-old  
still in your skin, who wants to jump  
on the bed all night long.

### [Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg](https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/?ref=merionwest.com), the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, is the author of over two dozen books, including the forthcoming *Back on Earth* and recently [*The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life* *and* a *Place in the Age of Anxiety*](https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Eye-Caryn-Mirriam-Goldberg/dp/1939301572?ref=merionwest.com).