“Sleep” by Kathy Mac

September 1, 2025

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Sleep” by Kathy Mac, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in July 2020. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

Sleep

By Kathy Mac

Dusk and the day’s fatigue a back-of-the-throat film of phlegm — sneezes and asthmatic wheezing. We lie down, grounded by time’s ton of feathers; sigh, then try to do them up into float or flutter into serried lines of pin, contour, and flight of speckles and bars and iridescent greens until we’ve made wings of sleep, push away the world. Every moment’s slight heave unites to become what we need to lift up, to drift off, to be done.

Copyright © Kathy Mac

First appeared in Poetry Pause on July 22, 2020.

Kathy Mac recently retired from running Creative Writing program at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB. She co-received a Community Impact Award for the Odd Sundays reading series (2016-2022). Her books include three of poetry, one of essays, and two of writing instruction; her first poetry book won the League of Canadian Poet’s Lampert Award, and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award; her third was nominated for the Fiddlehead Poetry Prize in NB.

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