by Sally J. Johnson
sleep is several blocks south of here we are not safe from the hurricane here have some whiskey have some wine have this gravity these failed soufflés this hangover have another have sex here my teeth hear themselves but the taxi is here have a whole uninterrupted vanishing of memory hear the brain’s private brain here have a wakeup call a late checkout a bed you can have it finally here away from the storm hear the ocean it’s coming from a cellphone’s speaker soothing someone to sleep
Sally J. Johnson is a poet and lyric essayist. She was a 2016 Fellow at the Lambda Literary Writer's Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices and a finalist for the 2016 Black Warrior Review Contest for Nonfiction. The winner of the 2015 Poetry International Prize judged by Carol Frost, she was also a finalist for Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize in Nonfiction, and winner of Madison Review's 2015 Phyllis Smart-Young Prize for Poetry. You can read more of her work in places like Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Collagist,Bodega, Whiskey Island, and elsewhere. Sally received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where she served as Managing Editor for the award-winning literary journal Ecotone. Find her online @sallyjayjohnson.