At first, we didn't know
they had a name—the midnight, eyes-half-shut screams
he screamed while kneeling, then thrashing
inconsolably about his dim-lit crib. We didn't know
that trying to comfort him, like we so often comforted
the infant he once was, only prolonged
the struggle, that his limbs would fight cradling
with surprising violence, that lullabies
fed his cries' virulent hunger. We didn't know
our son was not awake.

Now, we've reduced
the once hours-long interruptions to ten-
minute rituals. No longer afraid of some invisible
death-bed emergency, we kneel instead
beside him upon the first shriek awakening
us. Our two-year old wrestles his demon alone,
while we quietly try to comprehend the battle
before us. Is it something we did—too late
a bed time? Not enough dinner? Some attempt
at discipline gone terrifyingly wrong? Is he reliving
the purgatorial hours when he was first
old enough to realize that we left him
with the babysitter? Perhaps he knows
what we guiltily fear, the years of undivided
love that we gave his older brother, now resting
unstirred across the room? Or is it an even harsher
truth—perhaps it has nothing to do with us at all?

In darkness, I hold your hand and await
the ritual's promise—that the screams
will stop suddenly, and that he will lay down
without further incident; that we will return to our bed,
vainly laboring to analyze the patterns, tossing
in uneven blankets as we grasp
at what will become of his struggle, of all its future
manifestations; that in this room, he will sleep like
the baby we knew, hugging a stuffed blue bear,
oblivious to the terror once before him, as if
it never happened.