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Restless

by Renee Podunovich

His teeth sink into her pillow.

every night he dreams that he is an appliance

that is coming unplugged and in the free fall

feeling of that dislocation,

he startles awake.

to discover that he has grabbed

the nearest soft thing he can find

and has her pillow clenched in his mouth

and if he removes it he might scream.

he mutters in his sleep:

not integrated. I'm a clock radio.

brisket. army truck. get out.

they eat breakfast quietly.

he can't remember the nightmares

exactly, but they haunt him

and so he eats abnormal amounts of

toast and eggs. she doesn't know

what to say to him

about these nocturnal assertions.

can't bear to tell him that in fact

it is she who shoves the pillow

toward his gaping mouth to appease

the molars and incisors and canines

and avoid the possibility that he might

instead devour her. without even

waking up. would see her in the morning

just a skeleton. picked clean.

thin and white and perfectly

at rest.

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