Sonnet To A Hot Water Bottle

Hail, hot water bottle! No brick are you

     And yet you are; in fact you’re worth far more

     Than any two bricks yea, e’en three or four,

Such as our good old mothers heated through

To warm our beds when winds of winter blew,

There are bottles and bottles, some of glass,

But you, O rubber! all of them surpass

     So pliant, warm, elastic, comforting

     When Jack Frost comes our naked toes to sting.

When toothache rocks our being through the night,

And we are ready to give up the fight,

     Behold you come, old bot’ to bring us cheer,

     As good as any doctor far or near,

With ne’er a bill to give us all a fright.

Dec. 13, ‘05