Sleep is

sleep is a sometimes figure who convulses
to drums and obscenity clamour, and -if left
to his own devices- would hold pillows to
line-stricken faces, dip
feet in concrete to tip into rivers while
visored watchers count the muscle-grasp-gasp
of your shaking knees (folded beneath a blanket,
bile rising high tide up your throat) as

sleep is a perhaps friend who swims languid over
tuckeddown clouds, and rends your nerves a set (strung
like amber permanence) all cotton-soft settling
and (gently) his fingers
nudge the walls a glisten-ink reflection
as your toes anchor in the mattress dip (warmth
wraps up ribs’ daily fractures) the way
plants take root in soil as

sleep is an opportunist, who takes your hand
so lovingly and thrives hours left unlived,
puffs your dreams into airy things, and drowns
you down in star-sand grit

Pulp Editors