The werewolf is pushing seventy.
When he is a wolf,
his coat is whitening almost past transparency
with bare spots that look like the mange.
When he is a man, he has no hair at all.
His gums are receding, and his teeth are loose;
he is afraid they would come out if he bit anything sticky.
But there is little chance of that.
He runs with a limp, when he runs at all,
and even the moon cannot make him run faster.
Hunched and brittle, even turtles outrun him;
children let him catch up and dash away laughing.
Everyone suspects his human identity, no one cares.
Those with old grudges are dead or dying,
and the rest are too weak to lift
even a torch against him, let alone a pitchfork.
They do not sell silver bullets anymore,
and even the oldest hunter in the village
can’t remember how to make them.
Even his rage is almost gone.
Come moonrise, all he can muster is cantankerousness
or a surly, shabby grumbling.
He dreams of a running, roaring end, full of blood spatter
and bones broken for marrow in the silvery light.
He longs to see them all scattering before him again,
like hares before the dogs, terrified one last time.
He is sure there are drugs he could take, wizards he could consult,
bargains with dark forces, deals with the lunar devil.
All that holds him back
is his endless, self-renewing
fascination for his wife,
still more powerful and mysterious than the moon.
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS ( 7/24/11)
William John Watkins 