Of Wolves and Dogs

[smokingboot]

Moon wane and I woke
dirt under my fingernails
She said, ‘You were digging the bones
of a man in love with death.’

She was crimson and white
And I asked her if I killed him
For sure I could not recall it,
Though I dreamed of howling trees

It was my yellow eyed kinsman
Who followed the hunter’s smell
and smiling, rendered him
to meat and blood-squeezed fat

Teeth marks were on his skull
I asked who devoured him
She said, ‘your people left him
as a poison for his own.’

She shone laughing at me
While strange food fills their stomachs
I’ll go hungry with my own folk
And feast well at full moon

***


They will not find you, the people
Who sought you in ellipse and epigram
Who sought you in taxidermy
who pinned your meaning against you.

The only ones who will find you
Will be those who run into the sea
like dogs after a stick, discovering
that every prize is a ship's mast

And who cares if the wood rots?
Who cares what the salt sea spoils?
heads spit gold teeth on the belts
of the men who sing our adventures.