I had a dream that I was attacked
by black dogs massing all around me.
I had a dream that Esther owned twin white dogs
like wolves that circled around me like sharks.
I had a dream of us racing down the highway
in a black car, snow whipping past like air.
The radio played a warning,
an old man said to avoid the black water.
I felt the bruises on my arms.
Esther, turn on the heat, I said,
but the car grew colder.
We’d been driving for hours, we’d left suddenly,
120 miles an hour in a straight line.
I fixed my gaze on the white headlights.
Esther wouldn’t say what was chasing us.
Gabriel Oladipo is a writer and investor living in Chicago. He received his MFA in poetry from Brown University and has published recent poems in Dreginald; Diagram, and Dream Boy Book Club. He is currently working on expanding these poems (including the poems published here) into a prose novel. You can find him at gabrieloladipo.com.