Sara Krueger

I float the back channels in the swampish heat,
past the leavings of one town and then another,
keeping my peepers peeled and my mask tugged tight.

Every few miles I shore up and scan the trees,
fingering the blade I rescued
from Gummy’s hog farm.
My work boots sink into the muck
as I root around for something squirrely.

The search is so much harder now after the change.
But, Gummy needs the meat — —
bloody and almost beating.
Her book tells us these things.

She’d got no teeth left in her head,
Gummy didn’t,
when I found her.
Her eyes had gone too from many months of basement living.
She keeps me at this life,
Gummy does,
and she makes me fancy
that it ain’t just the metal men out there
rustling along in the dark.

SARA KRUEGER received her B.A. in Film from Columbia College Chicago. She has directed several short films. Her written work has appeared in Menacing Hedge and Devilfish Review. She has attended artist residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Ragdale Foundation. Sara lives in Chicago with her husband Garrett, her cat Lando, and her dog Luna.