The myth begins with gray fur
and yellow-moon eyes.
The teeth. First, there are whispered
sightings, dismissed
into the neighboring water.
*
Next, the discovery
of cattle bones, picked clean,
the bodies having disappeared
days before. The farmers are not pleased.
What they are doing is
unacceptable, they say,
unclean.
*
Then, the massacre: the story to begin
the hunt that will end
all hunts. It is reported
the children in the classroom
didn’t have a chance, the room a series
of red walls, the windows
a private-viewing chamber. Somehow,
the wolf was trapped inside,
able to feed.
*
The production of guns.
*
The problem that appears
to neighboring towns is this:
later that day, all the little feet
and backpacks
made it home. Not a drop of blood
was found. And yet—
the anthropomorphic need
to hunt continues:
it feeds.
on the current issue of potential Gray Wolf hunting in the upper-peninsula of Michigan, via the Kalamazoo Gazette