Outline

by Craig Dobson

Every night, I tuck the child

I never had into bed.

Tuck it in safe and well,

tell it a story and say Sleep Tight!

In the morning, when I go to wake it,

it’s gone without a trace, as if

the dark had taken it, leaving in its place

a shape pressed into the sheet,

a ghost of the ghost – regret, relief –

that I’d laid to rest.

About the Poem

“This poem explores the idea of a phantom ritual enacted partly as an expression of loss and partly as a confirmation of childlessness as a correct choice. There’s the sense that such haunting ritualisation is as necessary for the penultimate line’s ‘regret’ as it is for its ‘relief’.”

Craig Dobson has had poems published in Acumen, Agenda, Butcher’s Dog, Crannóg, The Dark Horse, The Frogmore Papers, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Interpreter’s House, The Literary Hatchet, The London Magazine, Magma, Neon, New Welsh Review, The North, Pennine Platform, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, The Rialto, Stand, Southword, THINK and Under The Radar.