Sleep Aid
Briana Armson
My heartbeat in your fingertips,
I’m a woodwind instrument –
I’m the coffee blooming dramatically
in the paper bed.
You’re the October carpenter
with stout fingers and broad hands.
You’re the shoeless captain
steering me to a sheltered lagoon
where the mangrove trees have tiny doors
and inside, lightning bugs
spark their chemicals
to have the same green tails as comets;
cheating friction and relieving tension,
smoothing cracks and curing queasiness
in such brightness that a little green glow
will travel back across the ocean with me –
peppering the dark.
Briana Armson
Briana Armson is a writer, DJ, and event organizer from the Maritimes whose work appears in Pinhole Poetry, Superpresent Magazine, fifth wheel press, and PRISM international. Currently based in Toronto, she's fuelled by queer community building and the catharsis that comes from poetry and dance.