We follow the she-wolf across sky as she crosses over
And those left on land howl and beam
At storm wolves that fall from the tallest trees:
Redwood wolves, wind spirits, wolverines,
And goats wearing wolf coats.
How ambush devours. Shadow wolf
Swallows reflection or illumination
In darkness
No wolf no world
Just shades
*
Even as a child she believed
In her selves on the shelves of her library
The shadows she read
*
When Briar Rose follows the GPS through granny’s thick-necked woods,
Swinging a basket of baked goods, beignets buried
In confectioner’s powder, meteoriting down
Their mutual, singular belly below the heart
Of the forest, a powder keg alive
In the grenadine glowing sky,
Plummeting wind maidens,
Her younger silhouette,
Her stories, the storehouse
Filling her out
Blowing her up
*
Even as she moved/removed karmic sections
that pinned her to one path or sewed her to another
*
The cottage is a book we squirm around in
Lines, rummaging through streams
Of sounds we dip in, bask in fluidity.
Velveeta on toast and an Akvavit toast
To the bowing moon we sail on. All demons
And shells and omens twirl, magic string embroiders
The cesarian-ed Himalayan summit after crescent birth and lunar tithing.
How rock-bound bodies and water compress,
Correspond through love letters,
Fashion shadow owls, wolf holes,
Lost torsos in snow globes.
Martine Bellen is the author of ten books, most recently, An Anatomy of Curiosity (MadHat Press, 2023), and additionally, This Amazing Cage of Light: New and Selected Poems (Spuyten Duyvil); The Vulnerability of Order (Copper Canyon Press); and Tales of Murasaki and Other Poems (Sun & Moon Press), which won the National Poetry Series Award. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, 2023, edited by Elaine Equi and Poetry Is Bread (Nirala Publications, 2025), edited by Tina Cane. Visit martinebellen.com.
Image: wall.alphacoders.com
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Heavy Feather Review 