A Lycanthrope Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

I knew the account
Of a wolf so hungered
Starved to the bone
By serendipity.

I long kept this wolf
Of stubborn caprice,
And I loved the wolf
More than I have loved
Phonetics, religion,
Kindred or any thing
That is tethered to the
Finer things than gems
And emeralds.

Caressing the wolf’s
Silver back -
Staring deep enough in the abyss
Such dazing void of the wolf’s
Tranquil eyes that shapeshift
Into different worlds.
The wolf’s teeth, bulging,
Sepulchral yet enticing
Such baleful features.
And the wolf’s howl!
The cadence is a choir
Of seraphs gushing
From the heavens of
Phosphorescent streaks.

I only feed the wolf at night,
And when I do,
The wolf feeds on me too
In an exploited consummation
Of mutilation,
Of deliverance to the final steps,
To the mildew, the vapor
As they dropp unto the russet Earth -
Such auburn fancy of sordidness.
This wolf,
Carries me home to a silent land
And leaves me there,
Naked, barren, desolate
Like a willow tree in a petrified world.

I have long kept the wolf,
Safely secured around my arms
Girdled, adored, festooned with
Amorous idiosyncrasies -
And when I sleep,
I am ambivalent as a single, unmanned
Wave of the sea -
I am not sure if the wolf
Is still juxtaposed to my scrawny body
Or far away, into the land of lycanthropes
Bashful in its prance across a garden of tulips.
I am uncertain.

And this wolf,
Comes back to me,
Only in the wee hours
Of the morose clocks.