Unlike the poet, you’re a wolf by blood: Paws on my back, teeth in my neck.
With the city’s cheeks full of southwestern wind,
You ruffle March ice on the flower-beds.
Well, I have had myself a spring:
Jacket blown open like a door ajar,
Eyelashes matted, hem puddle-wet,
Pink petals waiting in an outstretched hand.
On bridges over rivers
Engorged with the thrombosis of melted water,
Men spit over their shoulders,
Women cross themselves.
Your paw prints sign the asphalt
Where roads meet land.
You stalked my scent, and I got tired.
Run down, wrung out my skirt,
And fed you with my body –
The only thing I had.
“No matter how much you feed the wolf,
He still stares into the forest.”
Loved this poem.
Wonderfully clever imagry — “the city’s cheeks full of southwestern wind” reminds me so much of my childhood home in Chicago — but, in that case, the city’s cheeks were usually full of north winds.