Prompt: What is the belly of the story that is stalking you?
We didn’t have wolves in Wisconsin when I grew up. We had coyotes and foxes, the closeted kin to wolves. My father trapped them before I was born. I assume in baited footholds; there are pictures in the basement of a canine in a trap, alive, the snow torn to dirt in a circle radius around the metal spiked in t he ground. Mostly (but not always) the animals I trapped were dead on arrival, but no these. He took a gun to each set. I wonder what happened inside him looking into the eyes of those wild animals, full of fear and ferocity before pulling the trigger.
The belly is full of acid, breaking down, sorting, system discerning nutrient from poison from waste. The belly distills, red in tooth and claw.
My belly is soft, the fat from babes soft pillows corded in lighting marks. Inside the womb is low, falling ( I have been told) hiding in the back away from the light. I tell her I am here when she is ready. We will hod her, she does not have to collapse.
I remember following my father through the road side plants, the chicory and queen annes lace and grasses covered with melted frost. Dew, turned frozen, and liquid again as the earth turned us towards the sun. The trail was low in the tall, tall, plants. Racoons were the mark, but instead in the trap was a juvenile red fox, it’s body still soft and liquid, though not warm. When the animals are stiff, they are easier to carry. He handed it to me- “pitch it” he said; we didn’t have a permit for fox. It slipped in my hands, the pelt rich and the body flowing, reminiscent of my cats, whom I loved. I threw it into those tall plants, brown and green with fall’s dying. I wonder how long until it was digested back into the belly of the earth.
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