Donna Dallas
When all else fails head back to Hardeeville jobless moneyless had the 1999 Saturn drove that hoopty to its grave just north of the Hardeeville exit left it off the side of the road to rot there was a family of eagles when I left built a gigantic nest in the old water tower five of em Years later, I stumble up the cracked stone walkway the burned out 1978 Ford Bronco on the same cinder blocks those eagles they bred and bred shit-ton of em over here now in the deep plush woods I think they, like us country folk inbred and took over there’s an albino one some big as sheep never seen such huge bulky mis-shaped birds of prey these monsters hunt deep devoured most of the wildlife even the trees dried up and rotted out nothin left to offer My uncles’ sisters’ grandson came over to borrow our dolly he’s moving further south with his second wife her three kids they got a baby on the way I thought I could stop the spread of us my four sisters and four brothers backyard littered with tiny graves of still borns and miscarriages abominations that lived a few days all of us packed in this small house with a barn out back we coulda lived in it but Pa was busy for years making moonshine later my oldest brother the first-born set up shop in it for his meth production All my sisters had babies by the sweet age of sixteen they like these eagles devoured every boy within 20 miles gave them crabs the clap showed up with babies in baskets fuck, we had so many babies in this house no way to know who the mother or father were a gruesome circus of us It’s almost daybreak I caught a glimpse of a white dove in urgent flight It’s pure white body so darn perfect against the dark green menacing trees wings flapped at alarming speed as far south as my eye could follow to escape the looming eagles that haunt these woods - for them to kill that beautiful dove break it open into pieces would just be a repetition of our sick and twisted history
Donna Dallas studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly. Lately, Dallas is found in Horror Sleaze Trash, Beatnik Cowboy and Zombie Logic among many other publications. Dallas recently published a first novel, Death Sisters, with Alien Buddha Press. Dallas currently serves on the editorial team for Red Fez and New York Quarterly.
Old Water Rat Publishing 