CAROLYN OLIVER
THE SLEEPERS
Far below, the sea glints obsidian,
unseen, edging closer to wrap its bulk
around land. Night circles the sleepers
settles only when a wineglass slips, spills.
Now we are all dreaming drunk, held aloft
by slender fantasies: that we can fly,
that horizonward a soft landing waits,
and dawn to wash us clean—a welcome home.
Carolyn Oliver’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in FIELD, The Shallow Ends, The Greensboro Review, Booth, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Lunch Ticket, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. A graduate of The Ohio State University and Boston University, she lives in Massachusetts with her family. Links to more of her writing can be found at carolynoliver.net.