Something about the heat this year

by James Grinwis

Snapshot with Wolf

Wolf made of gems.

Wolf made of alligator scales,

pine wood, and gems.

Like a length of gristle,

a lanky cartilage, loveliness,

the wolf. A strand of grit

attached to bone, a heart made of

love-pulp encased in a boot. Something

about the heat this year, the way

it curdles the armpits

and the spaces between fingers,

other spots. Something about

losing the whole of one's work

because of an accident

and feeling no desire at all

to embark on it again,

opening the skull

to a fullness of missing.

*

Inside the wolf's belly,

it is warm: yellow adobe

covered with small, colorful sculptures,

Klezmer and Bedouin music,

the little booths occupied by,

in alternating time,

heavy drinkers, emaciated

insomniacs, desperate office workers,

pipe fitters, tea afficionados. Those with

massive schedules and those

with no sensitivity to such.

A little crate full of toys

occupies one corner,

on a shelf far above the others,

the old shotgun full of buckshot

which has not been used for years;

a museum piece, a lichened rock.

*

The landscape melts.

I am feeding on small things

scurrying along dusty canals in the landscape,

to become an appendage

of the wolf, placentally attached,

waiting for a sun spike

to nudge all the plants and stuff

up from frozen sleep.

From The American Poetry Review, November/December 2015.