Gaunt
As autumn shadows
evolve into winter nights,
hunger comes sniffing.
Gaunt, the gray wolf has grown.
With yellow eyes.
Her belly snarls a wild music of want,
to match the growl in her throat.
In the spring she fed well
from the hunt.
Her teeth left the green grass
dappled with red.
But summer came warm
and did not warm her.
Heat drove the hunted to ground.
Sickness claimed her pack.
On a hushed and lorn eve,
in a desperate famine,
through cold black woods
she came weak to my fire.
I threw her the carcass
of my feast,
and she became my muse.
In no way domesticated.
With strength returned, she hunted.
Spurning the tame food I offered,
she left me the feathers
of some gutted prey.
Now on occasion she visits.
At edge of fire and shadow,
only her eyes glow.
We judge each other warily.
We will be friends,
a pack of two.
Or one will kill the other.
Charles Gramlich is the author of the Talera fantasy series, the SF novel Under the Ember Star, and the thriller, Cold in the Light. His poetry has appeared in magazines such as Star*Line, Niteblade, Beat to a Pulp, and Dreams and Nightmares. His work is generally available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Wildside Press. His chapbook of vampire haiku, Wanting the Mouth of a Lover, is out of print and available only via email. Charles lives with his award-winning photographer wife in Louisiana. He is on Facebook and blogs at: http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com.
