Sleeping Arrangements

• On a Bronx fire escape, curled up on couch cushions, desperate for a breeze
• With my sister in a top bunk that belongs to our cousin, in a room that isn’t ours, in a Brooklyn apartment never meant for us
• In a bedroom hardly bigger than the bed, with my mother and my brother and my sister, lying head to foot in a pointless effort to give each other space
• On two lumpy armchairs shoved together as a makeshift berth after the first eviction
• Near the window in an armchair, pen still in hand, scribbling my stories before morning traffic wakes the others
• At a desk in class, chin propped on palm, until an ill-shaven Jesuit pauses his lecture on Aeschylus to poke me with his cane
• On a carpeted floor that smells of beer and party smoke, too drunk to drive home, too scared to face my mom
• In too many beds with too many strangers hoping I’ll wake early and be gone
• Beneath the sound of a seagull’s song in the hot, salty air, on a blanket not far from the water’s edge
• In a rocker near the window, where a streetlamp keeps watch nonchalantly while I nurse a baby too curious to sleep
• Night after night under a Ninja Turtles comforter with a child in my arms till his fever breaks or the bogyman concedes defeat
• On a train that left for the city before dawn, crowded with thick coats, aging briefcases, and rigid to-do lists
• With two restless Little Leaguers, all elbows and knees, who’ve stayed up too late, wired on candy they’ve looted in Frankenstein’s name
• In our cabin’s top bunk, with bugs rude and riotous outside and my knees scraping the ceiling’s wooden planks
• At the dining room table at two in the morning, face down on a yellow legal pad crammed with fits and starts of dialogue and margin notes
• In costly New York hotel rooms paid for by clients who expect me at their conference tables at eight a.m. sharp, no matter how many first days of school I have to miss
• In a flimsy tent with my eight-year-old, both frightened by the pounding rain and relentless darkness
• In a window seat, engines growling, legs cramped, hours to go
• On a recliner, clutching a Teddy bear, waiting again for a teenager to arrive home safely
• On someone else’s sheets, with someone else’s husband
• At a New England B&B, the smell of bacon drifting in, the day ours alone
• On my meditation cushion, with the best of intentions
• Folded into the arms of someone who loves me, at last
• Sitting at my desk in Midtown, chair turned toward the windows of the fortieth floor across the way, framing suits that move with mysterious purpose and talk that makes no sound
• On the shoulder of a Mets fan, somewhere in the sixth inning
• In a Broadway theatre, on a New York weeknight in a seat we paid too much for
• Fitfully, in a chair at the bedside of my son drying out in an emergency ward
• Swaying in a hammock under a June night’s sky, believing the worst is over
• In a queen-sized bed, in a master bedroom, alone
• Soundly on a loveseat in my study, a first draft finally done
• Tossing and turning in a room beneath a room where a young man lies homeless again, no match for his demons, fearing I will trade my life for his
• With the touch of a grandchild’s breath on my cheek, his weight on my heart, sensing but not seeing that there’s only this moment

Mary Ann McGuigan

Mary Ann McGuigan’s creative nonfiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Brevity, Citron Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. The Sun, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, and many other journals have published her fiction. Her collection Pieces includes stories named for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net; her new story collection, That Very Place, was released in September 2025. The Junior Library Guild and the New York Public Library rank Mary Ann’s novels as best books for teens; Where You Belong was a finalist for the National Book Award. She loves visitors: www.maryannmcguigan.com.