There's A Rat In My Bed
“There’s a Rat in my bed!”
“Can’t you hear what I’ve said?”
She jumped to her feet --- rather neat,
preparing for the fight
to defend her room with all her might.
“Is it my sheet?”
Oh my, does she now have to compete?
“A Rat I don’t want as mate.”
Oh what a terrible, terrible fate!
“Oh pleasssseee turn on the light!”
she said half into the night,
“Won’t someone stay with me… Mother?”
But will she settle for her brother?
Into the hall she ran,
Taking me by the hand,
“I will not sleep with a rat,
Not unless you give me a bat!”
THAT truth cannot be---
While tightly wrapped about ME!
Shivering as if in pain,
She said to me in a voice quite sane,
“In that room, I will not stay no more,”
as she promptly closed the door.
On the couch we did lie,
With a wide open eye,
And all through the night
I stayed awake,
But of course – for safety’s sake.
As she came near,
She said with a tear,
“Alone I will not stay,
so… do not drift far away.”
And from that frightful time
I wrote this little rhyme,
“There’s a rat in my bed.”
“But dear,”
I should have said,
“It’s all in your head.”
Oh but instead
I claimed him dead,
So no tears need be shed.
For I, a gentleman from the start,
Will always protect you with my heart.
~Philip M Devin