What The Evil Dream
Do they fall through tunnels, spinning like weeds in a cyclone? Do they cry into their mothers’ laps? Do they hurtle down canyons of body parts: knuckles and knees, earlobes, blackened livers? Do they scream or stand calmly dusting themselves off, pulling a cigarette from a front pocket? Do they dream only in black and white? When they smell rain, do their minds take them back to their crouch in the root cellar, an overcast sky where they darted between frayed tongues of wind? Is it cloudy in their heads, or is it a blank space like an empty schoolroom, chairs tucked in, chalkboard sponged clean? Have they ever stood in graveyards along the grassy hilltop, their hands held high to catch the light?
--Beth Gylys
Currently an Associate Professor at Georgia State University, Beth Gylys has published two award-winning collections of poetry: Spot in the Dark (Ohio State UP 2004) and Bodies that Hum (1999 Silverfish Review Press), and her work has appeared in many journals and magazines.
