The Wifemaker

You must unleash the beast, the travelman had told her. 

She looks down at the creamy limb, mottled pale blue ash, grey yellow – the fresh blood on it, still strangely surprising. Coolly she considers how her hand looks like a claw, wrapped around the limb. Through the trees comes the men’s call of falling. A neverending call, marking each day like a metronome.