As dark a wolf
as can be held 
inside a human?
I am that wolf.

Glimpsed behind 
glassy eyes. Held
within a trembling,
strained core. Checked

by faith and pills,
yet this human
can still
be driven to 

distraction
by my howling,
may break 
another body

on its own 
without even
knowing that I
exist. I am

that good
at making my voice
sound like
a voice of reason

in the face of
what a human
thinks is a threat. 
I am that good.

I wake it before
sunrise and keep it
awake, tired in
darkness, lying

in its bed with
bad news whirling
above it like a 
playpen mobile.

I am that good
a wolf that it thinks
I am a good dog
there to make it

feel better. Make it
relax. Put it safely
to sleep and then
it thinks I keep watch.

It thinks I am
its pet. It does not 
see me as wolf,
surely not as 

Alpha. I am that
good a wolf, that dark
a presence, that loud
a call within that

this human 
does not realize
that it is my den,
not my master. 

Not even my prey,
unless need be.
It’s my home, this
human. Tight

and warm with
crazed blood, blood 
I crazed myself.
I am that good a wolf.