AN OVERNIGHT (BAD DREAMS IN THREE)
Bad dreams in threes caused by rich
food, night sweats, the news. In one, a
blanket in my arms holds
the disfigured infant
shaped like a wrench, a claw.
one tiny arm, and one giant one
and everyone cheered as the child ate itself.
In another, the land flat the buildings
gingerbread: one tall one square one
an apple core my weight against the
bathroom-stall door reloading
the heat of firing, he asked to check
beneath the cushions of our couch that night,
but there was no softness, no furniture: it was a
warehouse hell of other people
a sewage-and-compost-and-rusty-nail vision
the hum of chainsaws cutting people into thin sheer wedges
set between sheets of glass like microscope slides.
I rolled my body in as much blood as possible to seem
closer to death, to be left alone. Third, the one I awoke from
after you had gone: a girl with a ball leaned
against a fence and warned me not to
touch anything. Shiny elephants, no taller than hip-height, as
babies perched at our knees, their dry-skinned warm bodies
sweet but monstrous, shelter dogs left behind.
Rhienna Renèe Guedry is a Louisiana-born writer and artist who found her way to the Pacific Northwest, perhaps solely to get use of her vintage outerwear collection. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Empty Mirror, Bitch Magazine, Screen Door, Scalawag Magazine, Taking the Lane, and elsewhere.
Website: rhienna.com
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