August 15th, 2025
Ariel Francisco
“Something has shifted,” Ariel Francisco writes in the first poem of My Sleep Paralysis Demon Kisses Me Goodnight. In the poems that follow, we travel through various American cities, through airports and cafes, through heartbreak, anger, fear, boredom and wonder. Each poem is a map of a mind in motion, shifting in tune with the scenes of an unbearable world, a mind determined to notice and to sing. Here we encounter the poet firmly in the tradition of the troubadour, addressing former lovers, friends, other poets, strangers, and the imagination itself, always in the dialect of the heart.