Melissa Prunty Kemp

I’ve nodded off.  I hear peels and moans in what I wish were a deep sleep. I jerk like them with each lash crack, sometimes before its fire falls on shreds of backs and shoulders. I’ve dropped off right next to the shed that hides the whipping post.  No one ever sees, only hears the horrors that rush around these weathered barriers. Walls that hang smoked meat are the only witnesses. Only they see my sisters with Scold’s Bridles holding screams between clinched jaws. Whites of their eyes bulge so wide their irises disappear. Shock of each impact is a lightning strike red-vein streaking their skin.  I know I’ll never see them again whole. Just this morning, I napped by the water trough. I dreamt of them shedding scabs in the dust shuffled by their chains. They joined the paving gang, scraped clean one-way roads leading south.