Amid cautious, patient giggles from the coyotes
milling around her, on her ancient boulder that is
jagged like molars and likely radioactive, Elke presses
the pads of her hands to her chest where the beating
happens and wonders how it can't be bellows.

"How can it not be bellows?" she asks.
"Because it is instead a system of chambers and of
valves," the coyotes tell her in their slithery voices.
What a disappointment.

"Are other people's hearts made of fire?"
"Yes," they say. "Yes."

11/26/2013

Posted on 11/26/2013
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