American Life in Poetry: ‘Mother Talks Back to the Monster’ by Carrie Shipers

As children, just about everyone has experienced the very real fear of an imaginary monster. But what if our mothers could have spoken to our childhood fears? Carrie Shipers of Wisconsin, the author of “Family Resemblances: Poems” (University of New Mexico Press), depicts just that when a protective mother talks back to her son’s Bogeyman in this fine poem.

Mother Talks Back to the Monster

Tonight, I dressed my son in astronaut pajamas,

kissed his forehead and tucked him in.

I turned on his night-light and looked for you

in the closet and under the bed. I told him

you were nowhere to be found, but I could smell

your breath, your musty fur. I remember

all your tricks: the jagged shadows on the wall,

click of your claws, the hand that hovered

just above my ankles if I left them exposed.

Since I became a parent I see danger everywhere—

unleashed dogs, sudden fevers, cereal

two days out of date. And even worse

than feeling so much fear is keeping it inside,

trying not to let my love become so tangled

with anxiety my son thinks they’re the same.

When he says he’s seen your tail or heard

your heavy step, I insist that you aren’t real.

Soon he’ll feel too old to tell me his bad dreams.

If you get lonely after he’s asleep, you can

always come downstairs. I’ll be sitting

at the kitchen table with the dishes

I should wash, crumbs I should wipe up.

We can drink hot tea and talk about

the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.

Poem copyright 2015 by Carrie Shipers from North American Review, Vol. 300, no. 4, 2015, and reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. American Life in Poetry is supported by the Poetry Foundation and the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.