There are two boys, or, there is one boy and a girl. The boy who is definitely a boy is blind, and the girl who might be a boy might not exist at all. They are best friends. They live in a town with cobblestones and tall shale-shingled rooftops perfect for running across under the stars. On the edge of town, a desert, a band of urchin thieves. They might be named after their best thievery skill. Something like Lightfinger, Pocketswift, and Lockbane. Someone with a sweet face. What’s beyond the desert? A castle, maybe? The edge of the map? All that is known is the desert, the city, the stars, and the boy. He is clever and witty,
and so he saves the day.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
Trill of redwing blackbird while geese mutter-honk, disapproving our approach. The soles of our shoes, soft and light for running, roll against the dirt-gravel trail with a rhythmic crunch. We are under the sun, within the wind, beyond the reach of the trucks we hear rumbling down some distant highway. Look, a snake; listen, a woodpecker. A normal hike, but this time, you are here, and the lone pine at the center of the lake seems lonelier. This time, you’re here, and the wild swans don’t outnumber me, in their little pair of two. Soon we’ll return to my apartment you keep mistaking for a cabin in the woods. We’ll cook dinner in the kitchen. It’s simple. Come night, we’ll talk till our eyes feel the weight of the day, and you’ll lay your body across a raft full of air–the mattress we set up in my living room. Tomorrow we’ll fill our mouths with sweetness and our spines with the gentle rocking of a six hour road trip. You’ll meet my old friends I kept telling you about. I’ll point at the forest on the other side of the river, tell you bald eagles nest there. I’ll take you to Sweet Creek where we can listen to the waterfall. I’ll drive us through Canada where the houses look smooth and shiny while the sun sets. I swear that you’ll get it: eyeful of mountain, mouthful of river.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
We strike a candle and against the flame shines the bronze of a blindfolded belltower. We slit our stomachs and pour out all that we swallowed. The bell’s clapper, like a tongue against my ribs, comes clanking to the floor. You are rich with quarter notes after eating the hymnbooks page by page. I want to trust that our wounds will heal with the power of God, but in this chapel, Christ has been bleeding for decades. I want to trust that we’ll survive. I want to trust you. You have ink on your teeth and my mouth is full of rust. The foundations of this building rest on a bed of skulls and I think they are jealous that we still have flesh, but you think they are like stones. The stone floor is cold and the candle cannot warm us. I am a bell lying on the cold stone floor, dreaming of Prometheus. Maybe I will tear out my own liver every day. Maybe then my body will heal. Maybe then you will be able to burn with incandescent light.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
“Quite commonly, even without any particular disturbance, a large worm will break up into a dozen or more pieces. Each becomes a small, new animal.” from The Strangest Things in the World by Thomas R. Henry
There is a worm ninety feet long.
these worms twice as long as my apartment i think about them obsessively i want to invite them over and ask if they are comfortable can i get them anything and when they ask to leave i will tell them this isn’t the kind of place with an exit however gracefully you writhe it won’t change the fact that you’re here now cooped up with a songbird who never even learned to rise up early and catch you
The worms shoot poison-tipped harpoons out of their brains.
i think i am in love with the cage or the old tiger within i love that he could kill me in an instant but wouldn’t even bother i think i’d like to be the kind of creature made of stringy muscle and with knives in his mouth and hands i think i could learn to become metal like the cage i think maybe if people came to see me i would like it and maybe if someone fed me from their hand i wouldn’t think to bite it
They always shrink when they die.
i live like a secret where no one knows me all bricked up like i’m heathcliff’s wife or fortunato i think everyone who lives alone fears a death that no one notices except perhaps the starving cat but i don’t have a pet like that
Some can break up into hundreds of fragments.
last night i dreamed i found a way
to leave and it was like a gravel path but
sometimes it’s like a river and still
other times the way out is like a ladder
that i don’t know whether i should climb
up or down but either way i’m always
dreaming of escape sometimes i fear
that every bit of me might come alive
and flee my lungs leaving in the night
They tie themselves into inextricable knots.
i’m pacing in the kitchen waiting for something to happen the false coolness of the air conditioner against the chocolate pudding stench of summer rising through the floor i need to go outside but there is nothing for me out there waiting just like there is nothing inside for me waiting but the heat or maybe my own bones lining the bottoms of my feet
They build their houses from the slime of their own bodies.
i pull bones from my bones i sink into my sinking and self-address get well soon cards that i wish would never reach me so i don’t have to make space for them on my fridge maybe i will eat them instead i swear these wretched walls would be better leveled flat and painted red
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
the worms have come again dressed to the nines in pinstripes brandishing invitations printed on creamy white cardstock that I’m sure I never sent it doesn’t really matter the worms are here now clattering their paperweights on the table and bragging about the glassblowing class they all took last November I do not ask how they blew glass when they don’t have lungs because I’m not entirely sure if that’s true and I don’t want to be rude it seems the worms are here to stay because they’ve undressed themselves and draped their long fleshy bodies over my radiator and towel racks they are making obscene noises of pleasure that I am trying to ignore as I continue in my pursuit of a quiet evening alone I wash my dishes and listen to their supercilious chatter about worm society matters that I am too disinterested to fully understand something about clitellum care and whose daughter turned out to be a clone when I turn out the lights to try to get some rest they don’t mind because they don’t have eyes they carry on carousing until I’ve fallen asleep and in the morning find the floor is covered in a spaghetti network of dried slime trails
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
I think about it more than I’d like to admit: a young cowboy in America–dirty, scuffed, and taking care of the herd, riding across dry summer fields on a black quarter horse. To the west–to the west so far it’s East– an old samurai, one of many in the last generation of an ancient order soon to be disbanded and stripped of power, sits outside his estate under summer stars. The crickets chirp and sing. He runs a hand across the Satoyama grass and watches the horse’s ear flick with sleep. The cowboy does not have much except what he carries with him. He carries a secret love inside his chest that fills his lungs day in day out with hope and shame. The samurai has learned to dwell in shame and anger and has built a monument to bitterness but that is elsewhere. Everything is elsewhere but for here. Above the two of them, they have the cloudless sky. Beside them they have a velvet-flanked companion that dreams of softer grass and sweets snuck in fondness. Inside them, the vital air passes, as if from one’s lungs to the other's.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
O tome filled with all the answers, sit squarely at the center of my desk. Bask in sunlight, precious text! Let it warm your sage pages. I lift you gently, feel your heft, angle you carefully, as if somehow your words could pour out onto the ground and be lost. I see you and know that I am in a phase of learning. I hear my teacher’s voice exhorting me to open you. But what of beauty? What of the uncracked spine you wear? Dare I disturb the silvery veneer of dust built up over months of reverence? Dare I wipe away such a badge of grace and majesty? I do not. You will stay perfect and pristine, placed just so upon my desk, a monument to $149 well spent.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
dog on the fence post dog on the run dog on the television shooting a gun dog in the dahlias dog at the deli dog goes to canada dog shows its belly dog head empty and dog belly full dog chews rawhide till dog’s teeth dull dog in the canyon dog barks at birds dog sopping wet with a mouthful of words dog on the radio tells it like it is polyglot dog kissing dog math whiz look to the trees there’s dogs on the top look at the sheriff with a dog buddy cop dog in a scuba suit dog is a sinner dog is now the youngest powerball winner journal dog journaling dog introspection look at the water see your own dog reflection dog in your art class out of burnt sienna and on june third dog’ll meet you in Vienna dog on the powerlines dog on the phone dog looking up at you dog in your home
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
Turn back, turn back, young bride, for a murderer lives inside! -"The Robber Bridegroom"
We enter the woods against our will, bare trees scraping the sky until it bleeds. Our dress gets caught on briars of course. Although we’d like to just return home, we know stories never go that way. We are hoping for 7 short men perhaps, but know they’d never live in twisted woods like these. No, these are witch’s woods, or the forest of an evil king with six awful sons, or the domain of a vengeful goddess with four demonic sons: the sons are the worst. They always have their way. Maybe there will be a wolf. Maybe we will just get eaten and it will be over. Maybe we won’t have to be bound into slavery for years until some passing prince takes an interest, won’t have to watch other women tortured before us. Maybe when we reach the doorstep of the robber who intends to break a wedding promise so he can chop up and eat us, there will be a caged bird that sings a warning and we will listen for once. Maybe this time, we will turn around at the threshold and open the cage.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
January: The water is full of metal, so fill your mouth with the taste of iron and remember this will protect you from the fairies.
February: They feed you God and fairytales. They want you to be a princess: graceful, meek, and quiet. You want to be the wolf with a belly full of stones as smooth as fresh bread. Big eyes, big teeth, all snug in granny’s bed.
March: There’s a real, actual white crow that lives in your neighborhood. You try to summon it with trinkets left on your window sill: marbles, buttons, and coins. Here and there, a peanut, a few kernels of corn.
April: You’re trapped again, locked up in your room tonight. You stare down through the window at the street below, but you are no Rapunzel. At least you get to leave sometimes. At least it’s only two stories up.
May: You think if you sit still enough in the backyard, deer might approach. If you sing sweetly, maybe they’ll eat flowers offered from your palm.
June: You position your head so the moonlight pours into your pupil, hoping it will turn your iris silver or your blood magic, maybe turn you crazy or werewolf. You consider falling in love with the moon and are half-convinced that you have.
12.5 When Wishing Isn’t Enough
July: You have grown. Rent is due, but you’ve lost the knack of spinning straw into gold and no prince ever saved someone from debt-collectors.
August: Sailing down the highway in your orange 2002 PT Cruiser--nicknamed The Pumpkin since it’s one bad day away from totaled--you listen to songs from movie musicals you haven’t seen in decades.
September: Sometimes you feel yourself falling into old habits: wishing on stars, drifting into fairyland, forgetting that you cannot live on stories. There is no evil queen: any sweets she offers are empty. Remember to eat food of substance.
October: There are no pixies or brownies, so the spoiled milk comes from you forgetting to drink it. There are no changelings, so the weird kids come from their parents. Broken mirrors mean nothing, but the bad luck comes.
November: In the long hours of the night, you think you hear the call of a crow. In daylight, you find a white feather on your window sill.
December: You never kissed a frog or danced at a ball. The falling snow isn’t like stars or floating fairies. It’s cold and wet and sticking to your coat. Your shadow from the streetlight does not look like a wolf.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
I remember the sugar cookies in middle school, butter soft and sweet enough to curl your lips into a smile. They left a little grease on your fingers that smelled better than any birthday lotion. White linoleum tiles speckled with gray lined the floor of the cafeteria while the ceiling felt too low, the room filled with heat and middle schooler stink. I set next to R—- and watched B—– from afar. The first crush that consumed me. Before K—, before E— or S–. Even before D—–, who I never even met in person. He called me hysterical once, and at the time I glowed with the compliment, but now I think he meant unhinged. I’m filling my mouth with the memories like I would cram those sugar cookies though my teeth, a one-note sweetness flooding me before I learned to love complexity. Back then, I was trying to run from who I had been: bobcut, jello-eating child wearing fish-patterned capris made by Aunt Ann. I grew my hair out, wore jeans even to bed, and chafed against the forces trying to shape me. I’m still running. I wonder what I would have said then about who I’ve become, after I cut away all that wavy hair ans started wearing patterns once again, and never bluejeans. Now I delight in peaches–a sweet tooth till the end, but I love the sour film under the skin too, the dusty fuzz I used to hate. My teeth clack against the pit. I wonder about the spaces I hold inside me, like the blistering attic filled with the hard bodies of wasps, or the space my chest made for cello music played by a brother who doesn’t talk to me. How do I hold whole structures and people and years and years here in my arteries? Each day I swallow another piece of the sky, but where is the room for it?
13.5 to put it another way
When I was young, I filled my mouth with empty sweetness and covered my skin with guilt. I was empty inside empty, trying to fill myself by eating more empty. The insubstantial names that made me fragile broke me.
I thought his words were sweet but they were like a broad, empty field meant to bury me.
I loved sweetness because it was easy.
I wanted to hide from the bitterness of rot as the sweetness of the years before turned to ashes. I wanted to be empty of that. To wash myself of pain. Now I like the sourness on the underside of peach skin. Now I am refilling myself with memory, finding all the empty reservoirs in my chest
and flooding them.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
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