An Overnight (Bad Dreams in Three) by Rhienna Renèe Guedry

 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. 

Twitter: @chouchoot

Website: rhienna.com