…into a harbor
Where it all comes clear,
Where island beings leap from shape to shape
As to escape
Their terrifying turns to disappear.
………….Gjertrud Schnackenberg
Author: Claire Wahmanholm
Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Night Vision (New Michigan Press, 2017), Wilder (Milkweed Editions, 2018) and Redmouth (Tinderbox Editions, 2019). Her poems have most recently appeared in, or are forthcoming from, New Poetry from the Midwest 2019, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, Grist, RHINO, and 32 poems. She lives and teaches in the Twin Cities. Find her online at clairewahmanholm.com
Hunger
Wolf that I was,
I had no names
for the different shades
of hunger—the green
ache of one versus
the pink pang of another,
the sharper edges
versus the softer.
All I knew was need,
the opening of
possibility, a way
to be full. Belly-down
in the field, I watched
this new hunger with
my predator’s eye—
the way it rippled
like rain showers
around the grass,
the way it sprang
to the sky, dragging
its colors behind it.
Wolf that I was,
I watched it like
prey, but it wasn’t.
Four Erasures from Virgil
[I have seen a wolf]