Eat
The plate of roasted blackbirds was not entirely unexpected. Something was always killed and transformed into something else. Matchstick bones held slivers of soft dark meat. She had to eat a lot of them before her belly’s filled. That night, stuffed with skin and breasts, she dreamt of flying. She dreamt of eyes watching from telephone wires, eyes turning over the landscape of her body. The eyes searching then pecking when they finally found the heart of her.
Garage
In the back of the garage there was a crawlspace just big enough. Cool and dark with cobwebs against her face, cheek pressed against the water heater. The father said, “What are you doing now? Come out from there. And bring me that hammer.” She could pretend she was struck deaf mute and run past him and down the street. Sure she could.
The hammer swung heavy in her hand. The metal head something she could almost taste in the back of her throat.
Hunting
When the leaves turned colors he wanted to take his shotgun out of the closet and kill something. Hot coffee in a thermos and heavy camouflage pants. In the late afternoon he dragged the bounty in by its feet and washed blood and dirt from his hand. Winked at her before drying his hands on the mother’s good hand towels. In the garage the mother soaked the pheasant in a big pot of near boiling water. She pinched her nostrils close and breathed through her mouth because the smell of wet feathers made her gag. The bird naked and the mother made a slit down the front. She pulled out the ropes of intestines, removed the purplish almost black heart from its cave of bones. The heart quivering, still trying to beat in her oval palm. She pinched her nostrils tighter and breathed through her mouth. Didn’t look away.
The mother marinated the pheasant in her own sauce and served it over wild rice. The seasoning is a secret. She smiled her lipsticked smile never to reveal how she made the meat so tender and delicious.
Bath
Water so hot that her skin was boiled pink. The wildness washed from her pores and replaced by the residue and scent of bubblegum and oranges. She stood up, hands on hips, swirls and peaks of shampoo on her head.
Aren’t you a pretty princess.
Aren’t you something.
Brother
The hammer, the shotgun, the pot of boiling water. She sat on the edge of her canopy bed with its ruffles and flounce. Squeaky clean and naked except for her undershirt with its pink trim. The trim damp because she tried to chew it off. She watched the slow rotation of her bare foot. Watched the way the toes stretched and curled in unison. Across the hall baby brother asleep in his blue room, tongue working against the last dribbles of milk. Already featherless. All ready to go.
Marylou Fusco has won the literary journal, So to Speak's fiction contest. Her work has also appeared in The Best of Philadelphia Stories anthology and is forthcoming in Carve magazine.
She has eaten blackbirds but that was a long time ago.