# A Gift
**by Sallie Crotty**

Your ears rest quietly
in boxes
on your dresser top

as you snuggle
with your blue blanket,
you drift into a world
only you know

a dog barks
under the neighbor’s live oak
on this sticky summer night

your sister plays
another song on the piano
while your father and I
begin our conversations
of another day spent

you are filled with a silence
none of us can divine
until another exquisite morning begins
when you will delight in a gift
the rest of us had all night