Just Before Sleep Poem by Shane Markie

Each night,
when thoughts of final darkness lie down with him,
the old man imagines himself piling large stones and applying mortar, forming a giant fortress, high on top a hill.

After that, if he still has time,
he goes out beyond the moat and strings barbed wire,
and lays land-mines.

The last thing the man does,
religiously, before yielding consciousness to the night,
is to check that the Trident missiles are all ready to launch.
Satisfied, the man places his wife's hand in his, and thinks,

'NOTHING CAN GET US NOW.'