The Art of Sleeping

“Thou wouldst have deemed them awake, whilst they were asleep.”
—Qur’an, Surah Al-Kahf: 18

It all started the minute I was born. Or should I say
woke? This sleeping for over sixty years.
You see, I dream I’m awake, and then I stop
and think—I’m not really awake. Not awake-awake.  
I black out, and it starts all over again.  
 
How did this happen, you wonder. How could you
not remember when you were born, the look
on your mother’s face when she pushed her nipple
into your open mouth and said, You’re never
going to forget this.     
 
The sleepers in the cave near Ephesus. This must be
how they felt. They thought they had been asleep
for a day, maybe two. One sleeper remembers hiding
from an old crone who wore the face of the worm-eaten
moon. Another recalls mumbling over a baby
in a sleeping bird’s nest. Another tells of following
a cloud in the shape of somnambulant bread.  
 
They send one of the sleepers into town to find
food. He follows a cloud that glows with the scent
of bread baking in a cloud. In the market, he calls
for bread, olives, cheese. He gladly surrenders his
coins and slips off. Until hands pull him back.  
 
Coins are thrust into his face. Who have you stolen
these from? How else could you own coins
three hundred years old? He’d been sleeping
for a day or two, he explains. Then he woke.   
Though surely he’s dreaming in a cave outside a town
called Ephesus. Perhaps they know it?
 
It occurs to me this story is much younger
than I am. I’m drawing back each word, dreaming you
awake with me, your sleepless eyes. When we wake
in the cave, surely you’ll remember someone
telling you: We were all here before. We woke
and one of us said: We only slept for a day. Maybe two.









John Bradley is the author of Trancelumination (Lowbrow Press) and You Don't Know What You Don't Know (CSU Poetry Center). He teaches at Northern Illinois University.