Shift

I grew into the bearskin with great suddenness: a flourish of yeast flocculating in a tun. I fed on the dead parts of myself, the regrets & second guesses, the loneliness, the fears. My untrimmed nails hardened into sickles & my bad teeth gleamed like roots in the dark. But now all aggression had left me. I wanted only to raid the settlements of ants & bees & savor the pale malt grains of their larvae. The bees I let live went around lifting the skirts of blueberry blossoms so they too could die the little death & turn into something rounder, darker, sweeter. When the hunters came I was heavy with the fat of the land.