For years, when her children were small, she stole a little sleep from them each night. Just a few minutes’ worth; what was the harm? She labeled the glass vials by name and date and time, and locked them in a fireproof safe. The sleep was colorless, though the longer she stored it, the more the vials glowed, an icy, rosy glow like winter mornings when dawn rose up from the frozen ground. She wanted run-of-the-mill, average sleep, so she skipped the nights when they had fevers, birthdays, and Christmas. And nights they spotted shooting stars. If, at breakfast, a child reported falling off a cliff or being chased by lions, she poured that night’s sleep down the drain; she couldn’t risk nightmares infecting her collection. She had always intended, one day, to return the sleep to its rightful owners. But so many nights now, instead of lingering in the doorway to watch her children sleep, she found herself in the basement, gazing at the rows of softly glowing vials, unable to tear herself away.

Kathleen McGookey

is the author of four books of prose poems and three chapbooks, most recently Instructions for My Imposter (Press 53) and Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press). She is also the author of Heart in a Jar (White Pine Press, 2017), Stay (Press 53, 2015), October Again (Burnside Review Press, 2012), and Whatever Shines (White Pine Press, 2001). In 2011, Parlor Press published We’ll See, a book of her translations of contemporary French poet Georges Godeau’s prose poems.

Her poems, prose poems, and translations have appeared in more than 50 literary venues, including among others: Boston Review, Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, December, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Glassworks, Indiana Review, Miramar, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Quiddity, Quarterly West, Rhino, Seneca Review, Sweet, The Antioch Review, The Laurel Review, West Branch, and Willow Springs—and in these anthologies published by White Pine Press: Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence (2016), The Best of the Prose Poem: An International Journal (2000), The House of Your Dream: An International Collection of Prose Poetry (2008), and The Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry (1996).

Ms. McGookey has received grants from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, the Arts Fund of Kalamazoo County, the Sustainable Arts Foundation (2014), and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has taught creative writing at Hope College, Interlochen Arts Academy, and Western Michigan University.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “I Couldn’t Look Away”: A Conversation with Kathleen McGookey by David Nilsen in On the Seawall (22 September 2020)

⚡ Sandra Arnold Interviews Kathleen McGookey in New Flash Fiction Review (ca. 2018), about her work in the W. W. Norton anthology New Micro (2018)