“the cupboard light”

“The Cupboard Light”

It was nearly midnight

when he slipped out of bed,

careful not to wake her.

The house exhaled its silence�"

walls warm with sleep,

timber creaking

from the day’s last heat.

He padded to the kitchen

in bare feet, opened the cupboard

where li’l miss had hidden

a note for him the day before:

“I love you even when you forget milk.”

 

He smiled at that.

Switched on the stovetop light�"

not bright enough to disturb,

just enough to see his notebook.

 

He scribbled under

a half-written poem:

“Faith is not thunder. It’s a fridge humming through the night.”

A creak behind him.

Li’l Miss in her tiny dressing gown,

one sock half-off, thumb in her mouth.

 

“You writing again?” she asked.

He nodded.

She nodded back, solemnly,

like a poet-in-training,

and padded away.

 

The cupboard light blinked once

and stilled. He returned to his pen.

The house listened.

 

 

 

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