“Killing moon and a spade in my fist.
            I tell myself, be an open span of turned earth, a furrow
                        untapped by roots. Better to tell the truth
            that comes when called, like blood becomes a lake
beneath the skin. All the concrete talk I’ve practiced, false;
            the howl will always twist past teeth–
                        eager essential. No consonants rise
in my chest. Only stretched vowels that mean sinning.

Better to believe in a sprawling
            loneliness, like a gutted city
                        or a river fat and falling over
damside. Better open up and say,
            I am no better than a long and pealing
                        scream. Jagged,
how I crumpled under the August sky
            hot with night birds, trilling.

When I deny that I’m wild
            a once green part of me goes gray.
                        Little bones, white crumbled shells.
            Little stones skipped across water,
only I can feel their ripples in my lungs.
            Who told me to hide from the fierce spaces that built me?

                        Instinct won’t die by a bullet.
                                    Won’t burn, bury
                        tame, or thrill, or
            kill its young for food.”

Emily O’Neill, “We Are All Wolves”