HOLDING STILL
You weren’t there, so you can’t tell me that you remember
—but that lets me know I’ve told you this one before: about
That time I faked it, breath and beating heart like diving under
I clenched so tight my ears ached, all to attract a predatory bird
Body flat against the hot grass, both of us small, living things
emboldened by one another, one more feral than the other
Little round girl who dreamed it first: the field, the open
sky, the stillness, the bird of prey, then becoming the prey
The thrill of deception; just a game, the less-wild thing pantomiming
death to tempt feathers and talons to a grocery store parking lot
—That beast knew better; if she was as southern as we were, she’d tsk tsk,
caw bless her heart over my soft freckled body, caw leave this dumb one be
Now I am clear how we are perishable; too warm to pass off as a carcass,
and there’s already too much death—forged and real—to add to it.
You brought your own spices along, you are grilling
fennel and swirling wine, buoyant on this shore
The hawks circle overhead and I shoo our small dog inside
You see no threat and, well, nor do I, but old habits die hard
You marry cutlery to cloth napkins and I watch the sky
Violet overtakes grey until we need candlelight, stillness
Is the practice of abandoning worry. I’m still learning
the difference between between keeping busy and playing dead
Untitled Garden Poem
(Index: F.S. Pansy, Euphorbia)
Facing east, sunlight lingers out back as often as we do
to receive it, warming scalp and crown to tingle, squint
glint while the crows clean their beaks on our arbor,
having finished the scraps we feed them
We aspire for a garden that matches postcard
visions: poppies wild, shrubs fruitful, and still
we can’t believe spring bulbs yield what they do, all
those days of grey and grey and grey and
sometimes soapy jade, from whence we barely
crawl out from underneath every April–that
was when the Frizzle Sizzle Pansies
I bought for you all died before May Day,
perhaps apt for a bloom with a name like that
The best plants are weeds, anyway
I transplant the Euphorbia—despite
your objections—because what I love is
its instinct: it doesn’t need us
it doesn’t need our attention
to survive
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Rhienna Renée Guedry (she/they) is a writer, illustrator, and producer whose favorite geographic locations all have something to do with their proximity to water. Her work has appeared in Muzzle, Gigantic Sequins, Empty Mirror, HAD, Oyster River Pages, and elsewhere. Rhienna is currently working on her first novel. Find out more about her projects at rhienna.com or @cajunsparkle_ on Twitter.
***
image: MM Kaufman
Rejection Letters 