October: The Hunter's Moon
by Rodger Martin
Wolf
In the 3 a.m. dark,
I nuzzle you well, own my dream
And the leafless stem of time.
In the soft breathing
your pads become my tread.
your smooth, worn claws
glisten in the starlight.
From Saginaw to McKinley
your night echo wails
off the canyon wall.
I watch, through your dark cornea,
the elk pick in the mist-choked swamp.
And late at moon, wolf,
when the silence of my kind
erases the present, I taste
from your tongue
and feel the incisor cut
living from the dead.
