When I swim, I know that I will also sleep, because when I spend a day simply on the dry earth, it is hard to cross the border into sleep. It’s as if the water is a step toward sleep: even if I swim early in the morning, I carry that swim with me through the day. A delirium writes its name with the manuscription of hands and water never forgets this slip-road, the answer to the question of how we can move in the thickness of our hides. Tilt my head, hours later: water spills. I am ready to slip like a seal into the forms of water. The thrown stone tilts downwards. When it lands, sleep will be found, or founder.
Giles Goodland π
Swim
Author Reading
About the Author
Giles Goodland’s books include Of Discourse (Grand Iota, 2023), A Spy in the House of Years (Leviathan, 2001), Capital (Salt, 2006), Dumb Messengers (Salt, 2012), and The Masses (Shearsman, 2018). Civil Twilight was published by Parlor Press in 2022. He has worked as a lexicographer, editor, and bookseller, and teaches evening classes on poetry for Oxford University’s department of continuing education. He lives in West London.