One

Diane Kerr

Diane Kerr is a retired child and family therapist who also holds a M.F.A. from The Warren Wilson program for Writers. She teaches creative writing in the Osher Institute at the University of Pittsburgh and has published in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Diagram, Calliope, and Zone 3, among others.

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Excerpt

First

Our mother’s house,
in the dream someone,
a noise, at the door.
Huge snarling great dane
rearing up, mouth open.
I slam the door, know
it’s going around
to the back yard where
the new puppy is playing
under the blooming lilacs.
It has the puppy,
snapping its neck again
and again. Then the puppy
is asleep on the summer lawn.
I grab him, I’m almost
to the back door, the dane
is charging up the steps.
I grab the hose, turn it on,
fill the great mouth,
its deep gullet. Enraged,
it vomits, lunges for us.
I see the dark ridged pink
roof of its mouth,
I wake up.

Again you are dead.