The Other Thursday

by James Cariddi

The other Thursday I was sipping dark rum drifting in and
out between twelve and one watching through the smart TV
my third grainy educational video since my wife went to bed,
called “How Medieval People Got the Best Sleep in History,”
about all the cool things people did between their sessions of
natural, biphasic sleep

(because of course before industrialization most people slept
in two four-hour phases with an hour or two of wakefulness
between) and it turns out

Those midnight hours were widely reputed to be the best for
praying,

as well as being when most fairy tales take place.

Many remarked
that their minds had the most clarity at that time,
perfect for telling jokes with bedfellows or visiting friends
for conversation over leftover lentils and sops

while others took advantage to write

At at least one monastery, the brothers refrained from
administering an herb that alleviated sleep-talking because
the words that were spoken were too hilarious to miss

Apparently, whole gardens were kept just for different herbs
for sleep, most of which are lost to history. Sometimes varying
grades of straw, for bedding, were also grown in the sleep-herb
gardens.

Though not as fancy as feather, straw has the benefit of being
less prone to bugs, and is better for back problems.

Even nobles, when suffering back pain, sought out straw
mattresses

while windows were placed strategically to catch the morning
course of birds, said to be nature’s gentlest alarms, with the first
rays of sun.

When vespers ring all fires must die no matter who remains
hungry but—

finally falling asleep—probably because of an earlier program,
I dream of the mother of the man who found the Nag Hammadi
Library, awaking for a midnight snack, using the the most incendiary
codex as kindling in the family’s clay oven before padding back to
bed and pulling the covers up for another deep slumber. Then, it’s
slamming down a protein smoothie and off to work.

James Cariddi works as a school psychologist and lives with his wife, two cats, and two dogs in Middletown, CT. He enjoys growing vegetables and flowers in his small urban garden. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Flyway Magazine, I-70 Review, Tofu Ink Arts Press, and Wilderness House Literary Review.