1913issue6online

41 TO LIVE AMONG THE MICE or bird mites? My skin crawls at the sound of cardinals & all the holes in my body dilate to their play-dead-wax-figure function. The deer planted on our neighbor’s lawn does the same—I see this through my secret eye & living room win- dow & I am out there. Lyme disease! I whisper into his sex- kittenish ear. Hindquarters stroked by my wiry voice. I peel his plastic a little with my lick & pinky, keep the prognosis to myself. I drop my bikini strap & expose the henna tattoo gal- loping across my clavicle. The dizzying antelope fails to entice the deer. I have this ritual all wrong! I tramp back toward our building to wait for your return from work. Our shoddy dry- wall cracks at the baseboards: a shudder shutter: a being eaten alive: a being eaten: alive.

1913issue6online

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