This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest (The University of Arkansas Press 2025).
Content Warning: animal abuse
A Pedagogy for Lesser Bodies
My husband kicked our dachshund puppy out the back door
because she peed a quarter-size puddle on the living room carpet.
At less than a few months old, this mishap is to be expected.
Nevertheless, he rustled her out, scooped her up with his foot
and threw her into the snow shouting profanities
that are later described to our two children as easily forgivable
frustration. They forgive him, of course, and hug him as,
through a window, I watch the puppy shiver and circle
until she finds a spot where she feels safe enough to pee.
She needs to remain outdoors, he says to the children,
to become accustomed to the cold. She needs to adjust, he explains,
a lesson she should have learned by now. He is right.
She needs to learn—and learn quickly. But she doesn’t. Instead,
she becomes more nervous and pees indoors frequently.
Finally, he takes her to the vet, where she is diagnosed with bladder
malfunction, and he tells the children, so easily, that this
is a pre-existing condition, explaining we cannot afford
the medication to treat her. She is promptly shot in the head
and buried in the woods. Afterward,
he consoles our children, grieving together over her grave.
I stay in the house and watch a boiling pot of spaghetti noodles
go from stiff yellow limbs to limp white tentacles, the steam bathing
my face in faux sweat, stirring rigorously as though
this transformation demands all my attention. And, in fact, it does.
Kimberly Ann Priest (she/her) is a writer and photographer whose book Wolves in Shells won the 2024 Backwaters Prize in Poetry from the University of Nebraska Press. She is also the author of tether & lung (Texas Review Press) and Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications). An assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University, her poetry has appeared in Copper Nickel, Poetry Wales, and Chicago Quarterly Review.
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
