Occupation: self-care and waste management. No

destiny to fulfill. Produce nothing but feces and fur. 

Work from home naked. Have a live-in with thumbs

who hunts, grooms, sleeps with me, though she keeps 

strange hours and has too many outside interests, 

in my view, though, being volunteer, her price is right.

Found her at that hostel where I bit everyone 

else. Would have bit her, too, but her hair-smell 

made drowsy my limbs, like my mama's

belly filling mine, so I licked her ear:

savory, sweetbitter, sour, and salt.

For kicks, I look through glass, at birds

and bugs, not at or in it, nor see my image 

in her eyes, reflection not being my jam,

but sure as I guard her bed:

face-forward, door-toward, building bones

and healing wounds with soothing roar,

we know we make each other’s home,

me and the one with thumbs,

writing this down.

A graduate of Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers, Julie Benesh is recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Grant and her writing can be found in Bestial Noise: A Tin House Fiction Reader, Tin House Magazine (print), Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Gulf Stream, Hobart, New World Writing, Maudlin House, Sky Island Journal, and many other places. Her chapbook ABOUT TIME, is forthcoming from Cathexis Northwest Press. "As Told To" was previously published in New World Writing. Read more of her work at juliebenesh.com.