Fuck you said the shrew. Fuck you for feeding the cat that plucked me from my grassy itinerary and left me to die on the ignominious vinyl of this nineteen-seventies kitchen floor. Fuck you said the shrew, for ending my life before I was ready and the lives of my unborn shrew-lets asleep in my belly, who now will never taste the sweetness of milk from my swollen teats. Fuck you for making me die so slowly and for making me twist my tapir-like proboscis at your human stink to try and make sense of it all. Fuck you too, to the ticks that still hold fast to my neck’s velvet nape, even as my life seeps away from me and my little swarm of fleas skitters toward the baseboards.
