Beneath Skin

146 MATTHEW BRADY KLITSCH BENEATH SKIN For Tracy For the woman behind me warming towels to drape over Ares, it’s still hard to say, months later, what was in her that would not pass. Why she continued to sway her breath over the skin of Ares; revive if she could the spirit of war lost from his body. This life she’s trying to save with electrolytes, heat lamp, towels— I can’t explain what’s beneath every animal. I will say there was a heart, not his own, beating ferociously as God intended for every heart. I say that beneath skin, a ghost, a bear was whispering. Only one could hear. It was not me. At the sink I stood scouring feces off dishes and sponging dried formula off syringes—hearing her tears leave her eyes and enter again through her mouth. Forced the thought that an animal would live off a clean plastic bowl. ...