from "starla and june"
...I take the trowel to the dirt around the roots of the rhododendron. Carefully, I turn the earth, sifting through ants and bits of shell. It’s seven a.m., I think, and Starla’s still asleep. And then I’m hacking at the roots of the rhododendron, taking out chunks with the edge of the trowel until it weeps from the wounds.
God, I say. I fling the trowel across the yard, startling the dead armadillo.
This is it:
there’s something the matter with me. Something inside me, hiding, poking around in my blood as if going through the trash, lurking in the shadows of my bones.
Oh don’t be silly, Pet. You’re perfectly normal. You just did what needed to be done.
Really? Is that what you think? I take off my sandal and show the prosthetic hand the webbing of skin between my second and third toe.
Inconsequential.
On my back, a mole rides the back of another mole like two flies fucking mid-flight.
Oh please, the hand says.
My breasts are sprouting hair.
Is that the best you can do?
But the bad things, I say, that I do in the night.
What you do behind closed doors, Pet, is your business.
My beautiful neighbor is running toward me, one hand holding her robe together, the other clutching the phone as if to stop it from getting away.
The prosthetic hand rolls over onto its thumb and whispers, Watch out, Pet. Here it comes...