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.

BETH GYLYS

Beth Gylys (she/her) is the principal investigator of Beyond Bars, a Mellon Foundation–sponsored journal for and by incarcerated writers and artists, and an award-winning poet and Distinguished Professor at Georgia State University. Recent publications include After My Father (Dancing Girl Press, 2024) and Body Braille (Iris Books, 2021). See linktr.ee/bethgylys.