Before the Provinces of Sleep by Laura Stringfellow

He stood at the foot of the bed, imagining

the flight of birds through his mind,

the water in some distant city,

the slapping of sound in his head.

He dreamed warm winds, soft

with the arms of undoing,

shades of hawthorn and ash.

When he lay down, he went

into the world. He found himself

in the vestiges of wars,

of people speaking a foreign language

in sadnesses he couldn’t decipher.

To actually sleep would be

to find oneself lying down.

To find oneself lying down

would be to find oneself under the command

of everything that has risen.

He wanted only to be a two-footed

creature on the earth who dreams

of the world in color, who sees

at once himself sleeping,

but who chooses to go out and live.

Laura Stringfellow writes both verse and prose poetry, has an intimate, lifelong relationship with the Southern Gothic, and often explores themes of death, transformation, and woundedness in her poetry. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and hails from the muggy strangelands of the Southern U.S.