Wolf
Ink black, shark toothed, slithering
serpentine off the cover of my album
Peter and the Wolf, he paced beneath
the stairs in our dark basement when
I’d slip down after dinner to marvel
at the old cathedral radio, with its glowing
green eye, and study Dad’s forbidden
stash of 40’s girlie mags, the only
light switch a string from a bare bulb
in the center of the room, which I’d
have to reach before the wolf clamped on.
In the story, he swallowed the poor
jabbering duck alive. You could see her
on the album cover, contrite and silent
in his belly. The radio picked up music
clear from Rio, rumbas and sambas
fading in and out as the TV muttered on
upstairs — the green light’s gaze,
like an all-seeing eye’s, the wolf’s
greedy breathing, and me
thumbing pages in the light’s asylum
as boldface invitations from the spreads
in Whisper, Show, and Eyeful
raised the fuzzy wolf hairs on my neck.
