Lycanthropy
Poetry by Phillip B. Williams
Riding home, I spotted a wolf
dead on the road’s shoulder, a streak
of blood gossiped that it had been dragged
from the highway’s flat, black portal and back
onto the thin dimension splitting asphalt and forest.
The car’s headlights deciphered the blood—an elegy
of cardinals flocked from the wolf-gut’s opened gate.
Night was wolf-mouth, exposed rib the word
hunger crowning. I pressed my fingers on
the cold car window. I bowed my head,
gave obeisance, and whispered
“Like that, I was born.”
Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago, Illinois, native and a Cave Canem fellow. His work is published or forthcoming in Sou’wester, Gertrude, Boxcar Poetry Review, Hunger Mountain and others. Most recently, Phillip won the inaugural BLOOM Chapbook Award in poetry. He is currently working as an HIV tester and prevention counselor in Chicago.
This is so beautifully written… I love the language and the reverence in this poem.
Everything about this poem is killer. And by the time I hit that final line, all I could say was, “Wow.”
Thank you, Michelle ^_^
Ahh Josef! Thank you so mch for your kind words.