When your eyes are closed
A pillow ‘neath your head
A rustling starts, under your bed
Silently they file out
Monsters?  No, but you’d still shout.
Toys upon toys wander the room
Given life for as long as the sky is the moon’s
In the light they take whatever you dish
At night…they are the ones making a wish
The puppet wonders if he did good
In leaving his wife
Like his mother said he should
The robot ponders
Philosophical riddles
Who am I?  What is life?
His circuits nearly fizzle
The toy soldier is haunted
By all the past wars
The battles he’s fought
On the playroom floors
The teddy bear’s legs
Have never worked well
Two crutches are his
Permanent hell
They gather, they commute
Damning God—which is damning you
For their suffering, their strife
That they are forced to hide
As the moonlight wanes
They crawl under the bed again
As the sunlight dawns
You wake up; stretch; yawn
Later pull out the teddy bear, stand him upright
You’ve set him up for humiliation tonight