WOLF HEART

He bared those teeth that might have devoured me before running off, mixing his image with the pines.

It is understatement to say I was shaken by this encounter. I fell to the earth almost swooning when I heard my mother's disembodied voice again calling: " Wolf!"

I do not know whether she was crying for myself or him or both of us. Or where her call arose. I only know she called. Perhaps as her heart called out to him that dark night when her heart was seduced by the wildness of her need. And he came. Finally I was sure her words were accurate. This wolf came to her out of her desperation and comforted her with a physicality my father could never have provided. He put his muzzle between her legs and licked her into a feral happiness. Then he gave her seed to remind her in the years after whatever others said her vision was true. It was the same inclination I felt with women I met. To comfort for the night, not for a lifetime. Did they later tell their offspring that I was their wolf?

Rising from the dirt I returned to the cabin where I washed his essence from my face and slept a long slumber. I waited for him to come again. The days compressed the light and length until winter barred my escape. The snows fell and fell.

My food supply dwindled as did my fuel. No one could foresee a winter such as this one!

I heard the moans outside of the universe with its great stomach of chaos empty. I thought he would have to return if for no other motive than hunger.

I had exhausted my meditations. My darker nature took over from my contemplative concentrations . At last I understood my mother's despair waiting for the thaw that seemed as though it might never arrive. I also finally understood my father whom I never met, but felt I had through stories my mother told me of his abuse and alcoholism. When he found he could not break her spirit his own broke. He had a gun to end his life. I too had a gun. What kind of legacy should I leave? What kind of legacy had been left to me? The wolf in me raged and slunk against a landscape of arctic chill. Then he came to me! I heard his insistence in the scratching of claws along the outside of the door.

I found some lard which I smeared on bread and held it out as I opened the door.

He came in and dropped into a begging gesture, then seized the offering from my hand.

It was scarcely enough for a beast his size. I remembered some bacon which I had put away in a storage cupboard and brought it out . He again devoured it instantly.

His yellow eyes glowed with each consumption . I stepped back to allow him to pass to the warmth of the fire. Somewhere in me I remembered hearing wild animals were frightened of flames, but he walked to it and lowered himself, almost as a worshipper before the source. It was then I thought to touch his broad shining back which felt like the ice outside. He did not cringe from my touch, but raised his back against my hand. I felt the affection flow through my body. Finally he lay under my touch like a docile dog, turning on his belly so that I might scratch his underside.

" Father," I sighed. "Father, stay the night." I thought of my mother and how she might have framed the same request to him so many years ago.