Tracking the wolf
after Cormac McCarthy
the boy his brother their father
(not yet awake) the horse
the dog behind the gate watching him go
the she-wolf the snow the blood the gun
the traps the calves
aborted before term
pale unborn still warm milk blue
near translucent (like beings miscarried
from another planet)
the boy will follow her all day find signs
grass pressed down
still warm from the sun or from her body
a heifer lying on its side in the shadow
of the woods where she had killed it
begun to feed on it (eaten the liver
dragged the intestines
over the snow)
he will find her already in the trap her paw
crushed pad white matchsticks
of splintered bone
poetry of manhood
blood-marred
the bone the boy the poet
who against reason
will take the wolf’s side
not knowing
what everyone must surely know
that no one can ever
save the wolf
that the poor wolf cannot be saved
(Winner of the Cinnamon Press Single Poem Competition 2014)
Wendy Klein was born in New York, left the U.S. in 1964 to live in Sweden, and on from there on to France and Germany. She has lived most of her adult life in England, a retired psychotherapist, she is published in many magazines and anthologies and has two collections from Cinnamon Press: Cuba in the Blood (2009) and Anything in Turquoise (2013).
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