The First Day of Spring

by Nancy Tucker

I killed a little boy today.

Straight to the point

“What’s she crying for?” asked Linda. “Don’t know,” I said. I knew.

I always had the same feeling when they engulfed me: that I was in disguise as a member of another species.

My tongue turned to a hot hunk of raw meat in my mouth.

I looked down at the foreign mass stuck to the front of my body and thought, “Please get out, please get out, please, somebody, get it out of me.”

My tongue was suddenly slick and swollen, like a slug or a slice of uncooked fish.