lara’s Reviews > Calling a Wolf a Wolf > Status Update

"Everything that moves is alive and a threat – a reminder
to be as still as possible. Devastation occurs

whether we're paying attention or not. The options: repair
a world or build a new one. Like the belled cat's

frustrated hunt, my offer to improve myself
was ruined by the sound it made."

"how shall I live now
in the unexpected present
I spent so long in a lover's
quarrel with my flesh
the peace seems over-
cautious too-polite [...]

[...] I sit under
a poplar tree with a thermos
of chamomile feeling
useless as an oath against
dying I put a sugar cube
on my tongue and
swallow it like a pill"

"Without the benefit of fantasy
I can't promise I'll be of any use.

Left to the real world I tend
to swell up like roots in the rain,

tend to get all lost in hymns
and astrology charts"

"I am less horrible than I could be I've never set a house on fire never thrown a firstborn off a bridge still my whole life I answered every cry for help with a pour with a turning away I've given this coldness many names thinking if it had a name it would have a solution thinking if I called a wolf a wolf I might full its fangs"

(reread)

“it hurts to even think about the leak in my brain / where brackish water trickles in and memory trickles out / with what do i mend a hole like that answer me with what”

“Most days I try hard to act human, to breathe / like a human and speak with the same flat language, but often / my kindness is clumsy — I stop a stranger to tie his shoe and / end up kissing his knees. I believe in luck and am barely troubled / by its volatility. I remember too well the knife held to my gut, / the beehive / I once spat at for hours without getting stung.”