Catskin Banjo

The shack was hers, every plank & plunk of it. In heat when they treed her, bleary with need, she had let the dog get between her & the door. She went up the tallest walnut she could find, but the man struck the bark with the flat of his axe & listened— she felt its long deep shiver as if it were her own. We’ll take ’em both, he told the slobbering hound, & began to chop. With each blow her claws dug farther in & her sex pressed down like a third & spellbound ear. She rode it to the ground where the dog & the axe were waiting. A lifetime later her hide still held fast to the walnut wood. The shack was hers, every plank & plunk of it. Five strands of gut thin as claw marks stretched from top to bottom of the only door.