Yesterday, late afternoon, the electric rise. An hour before the sun falls through the trees and I’m sprinting hard through the clearing chasing an elk into the woods. I’d pulled all the pots up onto the counter and was scrubbing them as if they weren’t clean already, sweating from the work and the steam, when I saw it feeding. And then I was out there in the cold, in my jeans, barefoot, shirtless, not feeling anything but my own liquid body gliding through the thickening purple air. If you’d seen me from the window, you’d have thought I was after blood, but all I wanted was to be next to the animal or part of it somehow. If I’d had any idea at all what I was after, which I probably didn’t then. I was just running, so happy and full of sky, certain I could catch the thing and put my arm over its thick, hot neck, or maybe ride it, wrap myself around its back, feel its warm belly against my thighs, push my face against its fur. I ran off the trails, deeper and deeper into the tangle of branches and shadows. The animal was long gone, but I ran on until I had no more breath and the full night had come. But still the rising and I lay down in the underbrush and buried myself in damp leaves until I was nothing but a pair of eyes pointed upwards. The ground was as warm and soft as our bed and I stayed there writhing, shivering with all the power I felt, my fingers slowly clawing at the earth, my hands opening and closing like cats’ paws and I thought, Fuck Tess, who needs her, I’ll go find the woman with black hair and blue eyes where nothing is hidden, her plain, pale face, rosy farmer cheeks, the sweet green pears, hard pucks of cheese, and I will carry her home over my shoulder and show what I have within me.
When I made it home I was cold. My feet were bleeding. Long, deep scratches across my chest. Leaves in my hair. I went to bed and stained the sheets and now I can hear them turning in the wash.
There’s sunlight in the clearing and I am alone again, waiting for whatever I will do next.