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.

KARL PLANK

Karl Plank is the author of The Grace of Falling Things: Poems (Grayson Books, 2024). His poetry has been featured on Poetry Daily and in publications such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Tahoma Literary Review, and Tiferet. A past winner of the Thomas Carter Prize (Shenandoah), he is the J.W. Cannon Professor of Religion, Emeritus, at Davidson College.