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.

NEIL AZEVEDO

Neil Azevedo published a book of poems, Ocean, in 2005. His poems have appeared in many periodicals, such as Antioch Review, New Criterion, Prairie Schooner, and Paris Review (where he shared the Bernard F. Conners Prize for Poetry in 1998). He currently owns a music-themed lounge in Omaha called Vive le Rock!