Bedtime Story

Every night a man walks by my house and calls my name. If this were
a movie, his voice would sound like Spanish guitar and blue eyes and in
 
an hour and a half we would have a big wedding. But it’s only real life,
a street, a neighbor I don’t know, who named his dog Amy, and he says it
like a swear word
 
like an evangelist
like a drunk husband
like an out-of-work father
making a fist
 
and for a sleepy second I’m confused because I don’t know any men like
that and how strange to hear Amy! Bad Girl! outside my head, this far
 
from the typewriter. I wonder if there are other Amys on the street.
I hope one of them is not just learning to play herself like a toy piano,
 
or scared of her wallpaper in the dark and the tree outside her window
with hooks for hands, or in bed with a meteor shower she thinks is
 
the moon. Some night I will find her before you do, tie her in my yard
to a kite, and change her name to a lullaby. Then I’ll walk by your house
 
every night, and sing it.
 
                                     - Amy Grimm