By Shane Mitchell
Photo by Shawn Campbell
November 11, 2021
Not dying in this ugly old bed.
Headboard bears a scar, split by age.
Needs a mattress. Tempur-Pedic tempus fugit.
Women before me gave birth in it. Dreamed in it. Cried in it.
Amanda tossed sleepless through the Civil War, out there in western Tennessee. Then her granddaughter, Mary, in the first pandemic.
Great-aunt Aileen sat up in it, her red wig on a nightstand. A spinster social worker, kept her queerness secret. She was the one who cut down the legs.
Katherine, my mother, stuck it in a spare room. Tucked me in, smelling of gin, night-night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.
My sister, Kaki, gifted at talking to the dead, said the bed was too crowded already.
Her namesake, struggling with self-harm, in this second pandemic. Not her next, please Jesus.
Who wants brown furniture anymore?
Only hear the dead, but I’m not answering.
“Death Bed” is available in Issue No. 2 of The Bitter Southerner magazine.
Shane Mitchell inherited a really old bed built in Milan, Tennessee, circa 1840. She’s not sure who will get it next.
Shawn Campbell is an artist located in the Southeast United States. Campbell’s work engages with the military, football, religion, propaganda, and government. Borrowing from the aesthetics of minimalism, baroque, pop art, and Byzantine iconography, his work also utilizes a variety of mediums including photography, sculpture, video, installation, and painting.
