by Donna Shanley

My hand condemned her. I made the strokes proudly. On the wall, she lived. I smeared red paste across my palm and fingers, pressed them hard against the rock. “I made this!”  Only when the hunters left, jubilant, did I understand that in making her I had killed her. Weeping, I outraced them and found her. Wobbly-legged. Sweet-eyed. Motherless. “Run!” I whispered, and we ran to begin a story with more words than stars in the sky. You of now, stand before my hand and beg “tell it.” Listen down the breathing years. I will answer: hunter, herder, farmer, beloved…