the woodsy cleaning lady*
You’d be surprised at the accountability necessary
for a Forest Cleaning Crew. Janitorial Services swears
that there are sneak observations via woodpeckers
and such, but she’s not sure. Each spring, she wraps the previous
year up for review: hours assessed, her notes compared
to reports from the rabbits and wolves. She clutches this year,
covered in soft leather she tanned from the hide of a fox,
the foxes who learned to offer one of their own to her:
the usual, the sickly or dying or one of the elderly ready to go.
They wanted to feed her and keep her alive,
she—the Burrow-Tender, the Acorn Washer, the Tree-Bark
Polisher and Spit-Shine Queen. One of the wiser ones watched
her press playdough to her lips in the morning, freshly made,
and inhale its scent, nibble gently at the salty mound.
Meanwhile, said fox shook his head in wonder at the stupid girl—
she’ll chap her skin that way. The foxes got together and began
to leave a bloody corpse on the log out front her tidy hovel
a few times a year, bodies with badly lettered signs
For Yu To Ete or Plz no moor plaidou
and she did eat and was extra careful cleaning the fox holes
after that. She used only water and vinegar since bleach
stained their coats and sometimes she sang to the kits—
Don’t Stop Believing or If You Love Someone
She started mixing her own Hound-Away and sprayed
the trees within a ten yard radius. Now the Fox King
is thinking of some kind of Population Upkeep award.
But today she boarded the inter-forest subway, last year
all wrapped up, pulsing in her bag and she’ll present it
to the company hoping her work in the wood’s been enough.
*“The Woodsy Cleaning Lady” first appeared in Cutbank Literary Magazine, 2011.
Elizabeth Horner Turner’s work has been published in journals including Cutbank, Fairy Tale Review, Gulf Coast, Lost Balloon, and Twin Pies Literary. Her work has been selected for inclusion in Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf’s Top 50 in 2021. Her chapbook, The Tales of Flaxie Char, was published through dancing girl press. She lives in San Francisco and can be found online: @lhornert
General board, Fall 1995 to Spring 1997; Coeditor in chief, Fall 1997 to Spring 1998