Ring of Fire

Ash from a house fire in my hair. Heat rising from the cracks in the earth, grey and no sun. I had a test at the bottom of the garden. The wolves presented me with the corpse of a possum, and the corpse of a street cat. "A or B," they said. "No, no, no, no, no," I said, "Well." I stroked the neck of the cat. He was yellow and white, with blue flesh sagging through his teeth."This one," I said. 

The police were already searching through my house, tossing my books into the air, banging pots and shoes together to see who could make the most noise. That night, we lay on the floor without clothes, and I was twenty years younger. "You ruined me," I said, and felt the throb with my tongue. "You are the possum," you whispered. You dissolved into the cracks of the floor, "Not the cat."