Wolf
       

In the tale evil courses from back paw to jaw line, a string of drool cascading from the long white canine that names the genus. Danger's a red ellipse, hood-shaped, a girl-face shining from it- temptation's flesh. But in real life, there's only rabbit, raccoon, berry, deer. Home's a forest, swamp, or coastal prairie, den hidden by a stream, downed log, sand knoll, drain pipe. Canis rufus—slimmer than your gray cousins, and redder—the better to shoot you. Two centuries it took to hunt to official extinction, but some endings are provisional. In this one, fourteen were rounded up and bred. Now there's a small reserve—just one—where the fleshed bones run wild.

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Copyright © 2019 Elizabeth Frost All rights reserved
from Denver Quarterly
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission