Recipe for Sleep

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, 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.