Rhienna Renée Guedry

This Corrosion Beats On

And so do the men we paid to rebuild the
collapsed bones, the stairs that led to our

home, one-hundred years hovering
like a ghost above ground, porch

a perch where someone in a bustle
might’ve descended from her threshold

seven houses and thirty horse rings down
from the masonic lodge with brazen pillars

we traded twenty-first century American
adult dollars for the use of mens’ muscle and wrists

they hammered the frame then poured concrete while
you and I do what we call work but not labor

on computers in bedrooms that we use as offices in the
house we call ours, century-old douglas firs flattened into

floors, we talk about nothing; we hover between walls, ghosts
ourselves one day, a threat to be buried out back, like pets

Instead I carved our initials into fresh cement with a toothpick,
splashed gold glitter like rice at a wedding to see what would stick,

what the birds might take; wet to permanent,
we poured something and called it ours

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Rhienna Renée Guedry is a queer writer and artist who found her way to the Pacific Northwest, perhaps solely to get use of her vintage outerwear collection. Her work has been featured in Empty Mirror, HAD, Gigantic Sequins, Bitch Magazine and elsewhere. Rhienna is currently working on her first novel. Find more about her projects at rhienna.com or @cajunsparkle_ on Twitter.