Those ten small monkeys who jumped in bed chose not to hear what mother said. The first fell off.
He laid still, like he was dead—then a hand grabbed his head.
He found what he’d done wasn’t fun.
And those who were left
at the end?
Zero.
Not
One!

Ken Gosse usually writes whimsical, rhymed verse. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, later in Pure Slush, Home Planet News, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillwords, and many others. Raised in Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, with rescue dogs and cats.

Editor: This story is written in a “Fibonacci format”, where the number of syllables in each line declines based on the Fibonacci number sequence.