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.

MAUREEN CLARK

Maureen Clark’s book This Insatiable August, released in 2024 by Signature Books, was named Best Poetry Book of 2024 by the Association of Mormon Letters. She has received two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her memoir Falling into Bountiful: Confessions of a Once Upon a Time Mormon won Honorable Mention in the Utah Original Writing Competition and is forthcoming by Hypatia Press.