Making Love to A Wolf

He came quietly, unexpectedly, without a howl.
There was hardly a moon. I offered him coffee.
He said he wouldn’t sleep. I offered him wine.
He licked his long white teeth. He lapped at it
from a small white porcelain dish painted
with Chinese characters.

It wasn’t the swaggering of his long coat, black-tipped and shimmering,
Or its silver tassels that made me swoon.
It was his casual approach, his diamond shaped eyes,
the monologues about the austerity of loneliness, the smell
of three-thousand nights spent nuzzling the hard brown earth.

In the morning he tussled and bayed but refused to get up.
I made eggs. I stared at the Christmas cactus until it bloomed.
I called to him but he was gone. Only a warm iridescence remained
In the sheets like abalone seen through gauze
or emerging from a heavy fog.

The eggs were bland. I drank the remaining wine
from the small porcelain dish,
Choking on the few silver hairs that floated on top.

It began to hail and I noticed all my books lay open on the floor,
some weighted with stones or jars of lemon preserves,
anything to make sure they would remain open.

On each page the word “destroy” highlighted in red.

It has been three weeks. I haven’t moved the books.
I study the pages for meaning.
I sit, stir the fire, rub my eyes, wait for a noise,
a rustling in the leaves outside.
A slow dumb ant stuck to the side of a honey jar.