ABBY CHEW
ABBY CHEW
New Story
I saw you in the city last night. You stalked
a rat who bustled his way through a garbage bag,
eating doughnut halves. I stalked
you. I watched from the fire escape while you crept.
Your ears up. Your tail out straight. Your body
stretched along the line begun by the point
of your nose low to the pavement. When you pounced,
my heart seized. You were up and back
already, the rat’s tail whipping up at your eyes.
And then nothing moved but the muscles
of your throat. My God, you know just what you do.
ABBY CHEW worked for several years as a goatherd and teacher at a Quaker farm school. She moved to California and found a second dog. Currently she teaches at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences, and her second book, A Bear Approaches from the Sky, is forthcoming from The Word Works Press.