should be easy but sleep is only on the far
side of this conundrum, producing a world
in which snowplows scoop up our lamplit
remains after and push us into piles.
I felt like asking you, do you own all the
planets? Or are you just this one? In my
sleep you felt like the whole earth. Like you
were borrowing it for the night like a rental
suit or had always been all along the
whole earth. At the time it made sense that
a planet could be around me, and roughly
the same size, that a planet could fit into a
bed. Easy sleep like rain sleep, sex like
rain sex, rain smoke. Opening the window
during X-Files to let in the rain. The
lightning from the stoop at intermission
turning the fields blue and the fence pink
and the trees where the chickens meander
a yellow fever and up above it comes
down like it’ll never stop coming down and
neither will we. The narcotic of our planet
as long as we are together and you are
beside me on this stoop will never leave
the bloodstream. Sleep on the drug, sleep
with the drug beside you. Sleep if there
must be a place between needing, and
read if you can’t, or imagine a slow train
taking you softly into morning.
EMILY WITTENHAGEN is a writer living in Maine, fascinated by the natural and the supernatural. She studied creative writing at UMaine Farmington where she was honored to work with Beloit Poetry Journal and be granted an Excellence in Poetry award. In Seattle, she co-created the poetry journal HOARSE which was shortlisted for a Stranger Genius Award. She is a long-time writer and editor, and also practices nutrition, hypnotherapy, and herbal medicine. She embraces herself as queer and lives with her sweetheart and their daughter who asks compelling questions like, do butterflies sit in chairs to eat lunch? Most recently, her work appears or is forthcoming in Anodyne Magazine, the Champagne Room, and Mutha Magazine.
Okay Donkey 