Ars Poetica at the End of Girlhood
by Tashiana Seebeck
On the long dirt road one afternoon she was stopped by a neighbor
in white whom she had met sparingly. “You killed my dog,” he said,
pointing to a shadow underneath the sago palm. “You killed her, didn’t you?”
She had not seen the dog but now it was there, dead
and doggish, dirty on the roadside. “No,” she said, “I’d never, I was only
walking home,” except looking ahead revealed the path had
miraged, had unmade itself, and she could walk no further. She looked at the dog
and the dog looked back from beyond the world. Gently the neighbor
said, “You’re lying. I know you’re lying. Now tell me what really happened.”