The girl is half coyote.
Sharp hairs sprout: on shins, under arms, other places nobody can see. It is all inside her, ready to come out.
Blades and scissors in the bathroom, but she won’t use them. No brush can tame her now.
On shelves, dolls live in plastic boxes, un-played with. On newspaper front pages, women lie across lawns and under overpasses: naked, face down, nameless.
Mother says there are wolves in the world and nails the windows shut to keep out the murderers and rapists, madmen who stalk the night where little girls can’t go.
Inside, curtains shut, Mother smokes and laughs with TV families until they make her cry. Outside, fat paws slap the asphalt: a lanky man walks a German Shepherd, straining at his leash.
“Come away from the window,” Mother says. “He’ll see.” No man can be trusted.
She drops the cloth, comes back to the TV’s glow, the halo of smoke. Why should men get all the darkness?
Isn’t she part coyote? In her little red tank top and her feral hair, she knows how to run.
When Mother finally sleeps, the girl unchains the door to pedal her banana bike up into the foothills. Below, the city shines like stars: each light a house, a family, or at least more than one mother and one girl, each in her own hot room alone.
Father left four weeks ago, but no one speaks of it.
Sirens wail. Gunfire pop-pops.
She listens, sharp as any creature, alert for change, for danger. Nobody can see how she is changing.
Hot winds stir the oaks. She tilts her head back. Howls.
Shows the night her teeth.
Peggy Riley is a writer, playwright and lecturer in creative writing. peggyriley.com
Very much enjoyed!
ReplyDeleteLoved this Peggy! If she turns into a coyote, I'm all in. And if it just fires her up inside, I'm equally all in. Loved how evocative of the Southwest this is. I can smell it!
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