There used to be three apple trees, a milk snake in henbit. Mildew bloomed. One morning I let the dogs into the back yard and they disappeared into the woods. Turkey buzzards rode thermals above the paper mill. I folded myself up the size of a girl. The mill fell in on itself. Wind tore through the orchard. Then, rain on the maples. The baby milk-drunk. Turns out, I was a thing I could have loved. Raccoon in the trash heap. The snake around my neck whispers eat. Don’t you wish these things ended with something other than marriage or murder? If I blink the dogs will be back, grizzled and fat. But they will no longer know me. But they have been dead for years. The fates cut their strings and fluttered into the branches of the sycamore. The girl I was had a Bowie knife in her heart. Now I hold it between my teeth. May every woman be a furious bird.
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Sara Quinn Rivara is the author of Animal Bride (Tinderbox Editions) and Lake Effect (Aldrich Press). Her work has appeared recently in Sweet, Gigantic Sequins, Cherry Tree, West Branch, and elsewhere. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family, cats, dog, and multiple chickens.