Ann Foster Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

Goodnight

Goodnight

One night, while saying prayers…
a little girl asked, “What is heaven like?”

Her mother over heard her…
and said, 
“Say the words I told you, 
just as memorized.
In our house…
we respect tradition. 
He is too busy, 
so we…
must pray as one.”

The little girl complied. 
The mother left the room. 
Accomplished in her mission…
to give her daughter everything, 
she had been given. 

Tiny hands held together. 
Smaller still, tears un-shed…
for fear…
to offend.

Eyes closed slowly, tired…so tired.
A flash of her mother’s face, 
the one time she remembered, a smile. 
A flash of her father’s face, 
before he left.
A flash of the puppy that belonged to her friend. 
A flash of her best friend’s kind face, 
smudged with PB and J. 
A flash of a favorite flower. 
The smell of a carnation. 
The sound of water, like laughter.   

In the morning, it was quiet.
Nothing moved. 

The mother returned. 
Now there was crying, 
a grieving, heaving, sad and sobbing kind of sound. 
There was no tradition of words to speak or use. 
There was no words at all, 
only the utterance of regret, 
The disbelief of truth.

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