Black Water
I spit his name out & four wolves appear. Black, eyes silvery, ears skinned & tense. They thrash their tails twice then rush toward me. A dark pouring. I stagger back, raise my arms. I’d watch him lather his throat. Once a week, for a year. How the oval mirror held him. How it doubled his gestures. His hands quick & odic. The wolves now closer. Close. Their stench arrives first. Decaying meat, feces. An eye-‐watering stench that severs me from hunger. The wolves crash into me. Furious paws, teeth hot & notched, manes teeming with dirt. Briefly, I’m fording black water. Briefly, I forget his face. Then they vanish. I spin around. Nothing but sand & sky the color of clay. Even the stench is gone. Rattled, I tremble & tremble. Raw my limbs. Then I hear it. The mirror in a room miles away. It, too, remembers him. Furred with frost & lust, it howls.