Beyond this Day

In her bed, limitless awaits.
The covers are drawn tightly around her cherub face.
Long ago, longer than time,
her parents demanded she turn off the lights.

The shadows consume,
They twist and laugh, and spin and bloom.
All the while, there she lays
thinking of all the little, tiny cherubic ways

that the prince will rescue her tonight,
how he will show all his charming, wily might,
how the dragon won't stand a chance
when it is stabbed with his steely lance,

or how the wretched queen
will bite into her own apple and her face will turn green.
The king will be freed
from the spell with spell's speed,

or how the vacuum of space
expanding rapidly, cooly, in front of her face.
She'd reach out and touch
the surface of such

objects as Jupiter, Orion, and the sun.
The night, she thinks, is no more than real.
The monsters in her closet
could do no more to cause it

to change and morph like their shadows.
Perhaps, she thinks for the very first time, blankets below
her knees. That the night
could quite possibly, probably just might

be her friend
in this beyond day.