Three Years Sober One Night 

Chester watched seven movies in a row 
trying to get sleepy, but nothing. No sleep.

He walks into the kitchen, candles all around 
trying to coax cozy, but nothing.

He puts on the teapot for a cup of Sleepytime Tea full 
of nothing but chamomile, or almost nothing. 

Now it’s 3:30 a.m. The teapot starts blowing! 

Turning on no lights at all, Chester aims a flashlight 
under a red tea cup 
shining the beam up as he pours the hot water down in 
steam flowering up yellow all around in the light 
rising like smoke from an Indian campfire 
in the seventies of a century or two ago. 

This stops Chester. 

“Man, what an effect!” he says, hearing campfire drums 
and wind blowing in the trees, a stream trickling through 
in the dark. 

“This is one of those things that makes life worthwhile!”