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.

MELISSA JOPLIN HIGLEY

Melissa Joplin Higley is the author of First Father (Bottlecap Press) and We Shake & Seek (Origami Poems Project). Her poems have appeared in B_O_D_Y, Crab Orchard Review, and The Penn Review, at the Hudson River Museum, and elsewhere. Melissa co-edits book reviews for MER and serves as the Mamaroneck Poet Laureate. See melissajoplinhigley.com.