First, there will be a thin string, winding. A monster in the gridwork —terrible— half god, half man. A horned Anteros hiding in the bushes. You’ll be half cocked, half alive, half-gone by the time you get there, where the girls turn into trees then back into girls, their crippled ankles turning in the wind. Imagine that you are pursued by a stranger with very white teeth. Imagine the hunters gone from their supper at the sound of the trip wire, the whirligig. The thin spindles of your spines snapping and cracking. Here, the girls are always changing into cows then back into girls. Into tables and countertops and stairwells with steep drops. You will be pursued by a woman with a bow and arrow. She may be your mother or your sister but you can’t tell for all the blood You’ll be wild with fever by the time you reach the thresh hold where a stranger will cut your tongue, your hands before he takes you. Before we replace your body with a doe at the very last second.