The summer I lived as a wolf

I knew the names of stones at the river mouth,

crossed giving thanks to their uneasy spirits.

I heard killings in the shadows, knew to turn keen and quick,

travel in the presence of  thunder, leave no scent or spoor behind.

Preferring the high places closest to the moon

where the wind ran with me, I practiced abandon,

my spine a scimitar, star-whetted, flayed old disguises

into strands and rips, underneath I was sleek, open:

my muzzle carved air into four queendoms and I knew them all

as they knew me, tooth, soul, tatterdemalion heart,

and I flew, I think, in that time, when nobody needed

or shamed me and I was always hungry, bloody-tongued

but louche and free and supple, perfumed in pine and ashes.