SLEEP 

Suppose everything we’ve been told  
 is a lie. Beneath these  
lies, there’s one central to all we know:  
 it was only a dream.  

We’ve each been abducted,  
 with the lamp still on  
in bed watching as blood wells up to the  
 eyelids and becomes a dim  

night flecked with stars; in this dungeon  
 nobody escapes,  
a stranger enters our cerebrum  
 while night weds its mare.  

It’s worse when we wake sans memory  
 and think nothing was real.  
The violator undoubtedly  
 dances behind a screen  

waiting to leap out from the shadow  
 like the bejeezus into  
someone—it tears up our soul,  
 there are no scars for proof. 
 

Copyright 2000, Beau Boudreaux  

Beau Boudreaux is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. 

 
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