Sleep Journal

The story that needs to be told
is the one recited in his sleep. 
He wants to carry it into the day
but its words won’t wake with him. 

Now when he speaks, it sounds
like a cracked bell, and the doors
he opens ache on their hinges,
an echo diminishing, the trace 

of a road erased from a map. 
When he asks for directions, 
they always lead to where the rain
drives its nails into the ground.

AMORAK HUEY

Amorak Huey is the author of five books of poems, including Mouth, forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026. He is cofounder, with Han VanderHart, of River River Books. Huey teaches at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is coauthor, with W. Todd Kaneko, of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024).