Poikilothermic
2 Minutes Read Time
We take our chairs out into the sun where the
small poodle can run laps round the bougainvillea
or curl in the bowl made between the old lady’s
bathrobed knees. I sit across from her as she
strokes its furred skull with her freckled hands.
She is delighted to tell me how the scorpion—tiny,
genius creature, glittering black bracelet splayed
open against the yellow wall—kills itself. And I am
delighted to listen. Though there was a time I
would have been afraid to sit so still, to hear what
a woman of her age knew was coming for me. As
a child, she once saw a man catch a scorpion in a
jar: lit a match, put flame to a branch he brought as
close as he could to the glass. The girl inside the
woman can remember seeing the scorpion’s tail fly
up to sting its own head—saving itself from a fire
it could only feel as fear’s shimmering heat. But as
much as she remembers this, it isn’t true. Beyond
the stone wall that encircles the woman’s home, a
marching band parades through the narrow street,
firecrackers invisibly punctuating the air above
her voice. I, too, have known untouchable fire.
And contracted in response. My second year in
that city by the sea, I did not want to die, and yet
what I must have looked like from the outside was
a woman with a dagger raised over her own head
Read more from Issue 21.2.
