In the Grips of a Sickness Transmitted by Wolves
Sorrento, at night the long fingers of your orange lights
Prick me in the sizzling streets, where the pinnacles
Of other people ring tinny and papier-mâché. Is this the way
Up to the murderous cliff? It’s most important that I get there
And leave no witness. Ah, is this the majolica medallion
Which marks the grave of girl abducted by a stallion
Whom she gave a lump of maple sugar?
For that was in an autumn,
The time of year when young girls get hopeless and feel like
Giving it all away, the way a matronly merchant
Might brush off her lap, at the iron end of the market day:
It’s over, it’s worthless, without deserving and without
Purpose have I nourished this hope in my small patch of earth,
A sickly weed whose nodding sun’s gone nova.
Copyright Credit: Monica Ferrell, "In the Grips of a Sickness Transmitted by Wolves" from Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. Copyright © 2004 by Monica Ferrell. Reprinted by permission of Monica Ferrell.
Source: Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (University of Illinois Press, 2004)