Sydney Hutt is writer and mother of eight year-old identical twin girls. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and works as an essay reviewer—and in her free time enjoys competitive running, Gothic horror, and community youth work with her local Restorative Justice organization.
“Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved evoked strong feelings and nightmares in me for weeks afterward reading it. The story, about a scarred mother who is haunted by both her past & present and the true horror of the slave trade, inspired my own feelings of entrapment within domesticity, abuse, and a difficult marriage. At the time I read Beloved, I had experienced several tragic, unexpected family deaths and was estranged from my husband and my mother; consequently, I pulled a legacy of family secrets, female suffering, and cycles of violence from Beloved, and this short poem is a product of that moment.”
I can’t wake up
lately. His memory is
short but mine is
as long as the legs
that lunge for me
in the dark. I shout-
jolt backwards
against crossed arms,
but the faces still creep
up the edge
of the speckled
sheet; there are three of them
and they leer at me as alive
as the night, all square teeth
and canted jaws. Creatures, I
think, they’re Creatures and it
makes sense that I’m alone
with them, that they’ve finally
crept, one tri-headed
scar-tissued shape
from under the frame
for me. I rise in weak defense,
aching and wet, my eyes
stuck like glue and see
with calm acceptance
their legs: grey, furred and
disjointed, the spider from
my mother’s basement,
reaching for me across the
white and barren field.
