Dear Wolf,
It’s been seven years. What happened in those woods is a story that keeps changing. Sometimes you are very large and toothsome. Sometimes you are a man in uniform. Sometimes you are my grandmother; sometimes, you are me, but smaller. Wolf, I can still see you behind that tree, poking out like a mushroom. Your teeth are villages unto themselves. Wolf, I was never lost, just wanted someone to talk to. I’m sorry I didn’t offer you sustenance. I still don’t know if you took from me or if I handed myself to you like a little ribbon. Dear Wolf, I’ve been bleeding ever since. A line that opened from that basket like a fish with a hooked mouth. The trees, they were tall and congregating, like aunts. They saw it all. Wolf, you saw something in me I can never get back. Dear W, do you think of me still in your hunger, in your gnash, your on all fourness. I needed someone to blame. Wolf. Thanks for taking the fall. Will this letter help or hurt your sleep, your 4 a.m. truth? Wolf, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that when you leave, you’re not gone, you’re everywhere.
Yours,
Red
Caitlin Grace McDonnell was a New York Times Poetry Fellow at NYU where she received her MFA. She has published poems and essays widely, including a chapbook, Dreaming the Tree (2003) and two books of poems, Looking for Small Animals (2012) and Pandemic City (2021). She lives and teaches writing in NYC.
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Heavy Feather Review 