The
Animal Who Eats Winter
An animal has gotten under my skin.
An animal's
violent flight beats in my throat and leaves its bloody tracks across my
floor.
This animal
blazes in my lungs, swims up my bloodstream and burrows into my brain.
An animal
has lengthened my jaw, leaving its rapacious appetite under my tongue.
A shadow
of an animal paces beside me, hot breath staining the bathroom mirror. I
paw the growling in my eyes and take a razor to peel back my burning skin.
With each
cut a little more brindle fur pushes through the blood and yellow fat. I
find ivory claws, a red tooth.
A boreal
animal has stretched out in my soul causing me to prick my animal thoughts.
Coyote's mirth, a wolf's pant. blazing hunger of tiger and cold salamander
creeping toward yellow flame.
I slap my
hands hard across the sharp ears of animals. Lions roaring in the mountains,
a leopard's cough, the muzzles of bears nuzzling against the frosted glass.
The cold and pitiless eye looks back at me from the steel kettle.
At night
I call to animals of fire scattered golden across the floor. The disembodied
eyes of cats, green flames, follow my pupation in black flannel and red
wool.
Snouts move
in brackish water, liquid bronze eyes glitter from the slime, a badger rakes
muddy claws across my face and a snow leopard yowls, his eyes icicles of
alcohol in the half-light.
Some animal
moves under my skin, snarling in my laughter and tangling my thoughts in
a jungle of scales. An animal's cry echoes over the telephone wires, begging
my friends to stroke and run.
An animal
rubs against my ribcage. Its gentle savagery weasels into my icy human heart.
Its trickster's laughter runs all over my trail, killing the windigo, and
letting my spirit run free.
An animal
has ripped into my dreaming. Every morning I wake with a wolverine in me
and every day I walk like a wolverine walks.
webpage by Badger