Dena Rash Guzman

smoke over rice paddies


There is no release,
but this image does not require a release.
You're seated quietly beside me in the car, politely
carrying my carrion in your carry-on.
This image nearly is my release: a rush
of rain down the roof of a swanky little hut,
and the love in your eyes as you called me a slut.
I eye the world outside the car’s window,
the horizon waiting down the ribbon of road
rushing under wheels: the driver’s
head is steady and thick with black hair.
He points to the rice harvest with a gangster’s
bejeweled grace: “Smoke over the fields.
Would you like to stop for a photo?”

It’s too late. I’m drawn. The last word is.



 
 
Dena Rash Guzman is a Las Vegas born writer and visual artist, and a blowed in the glass, smoke-blowing vagabond. She recently flipped to Shanghai, where she placed first in a spoken word literary event. Her work can be found online, in print and at Powells.com in the book "Party Like It's 1984: Short Stories from the People's Republic of -" She flops on a farm outside Portland, Oregon. She can be reached at dena@haliterature.com