Because of the Wolf

I.
when the diagnosis comes
it fits it clings
it feels slack
like sheets
flirting on a clothesline
in a breeze—
now bedding,
now ghosts—

will I die
in strawberry time

or live to see leaves on bricks
or ice in the windows?

II.
The wolf has eaten the beach.
It’s snapped up the sandpipers,
running on their fast little legs.
It’s taken the bright afternoon
in the water
twisting the sailboats around.

Sunburn on Key Biscayne
and watching my sister
run on the sand.

A breeze and a horseshoe crab
and my feet in cool saltwater
and morning through the palms.

Things that won’t be again;
the wolf chews on my skin,
leaves it red and mottled,
the signs of a fight.

The wolf drinks away
my energy: I lie,
exhausted,
in soft sheets,
but find no rest.

I think of her running,
fast and sure,
but I have hung up my sportswear
because of the wolf
in my body,
the wolf who has eaten the beach.

III.
I want to

slip

let me

slip

into a dark
a dark with
long arms and
quiet hands
and steady breaths

after the injections
when the cannula’s been slid away
after being dressed gently
my feet enveloped by soft shoes
my bra being lifted over my shoulders

the wheelchair
the car
my bed

let me slip
slip into the loving dark
slip

Kendra Preston Leonard is a poet, lyricist, and librettist whose work is inspired by the local, historical, and mythopoeic. Her chapbook Making Mythology was published in 2020 by Louisiana Literature Press, and her work has appeared in vox poetica, lunch, The Waggle, and Lily Poetry Review, among other venues. Her novella-in-verse Protectress, about the gorgons in the modern world, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2022. Leonard collaborates regularly with composers on new operas and songs. Follow her on Twitter at @K_Leonard_PhD or visit her site at https://kendraprestonleonard.hcommons.org/.

Photo: Wellfleet Bay Cape Cod by Jim Wojno