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Goodnight Stars
Words by Stella Padnos-Shea
Image by Shannon Chrisman QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: Italicized lines from Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, 1947. 
Goodnight stars goodnight air
I read to my baby on my lap and the words sound final, sound infinite, like the choice to jump, to fall from Earth. Was this what you thought—goodnight air, breath going stale, goodbye. You were closing, you were closed, something was already slammed quite shut for you. But this baby, my baby, is so open, she cries and laughs with such ease. We place her gentle, delicate in her crib, and she falls into something each night she cannot name. Waking used to frighten her terribly, she had just been somewhere else, and now her eyes open onto light, onto my eyes, and I am smiling. Not you, you were so crushed, planning your bloody escape, goodnight noises everywhere. My baby, this baby, I hope would never understand such pain, that she could whisper goodnight to the world. She's a baby, as long as I'm here, her world is. Goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush." When you died, I wanted to make a baby from your dead body, I was that desperate for life; can you even imagine that, John?
#Unreal #GoodnightMoon #Life #Babies #FallFromEarth
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