A Wolf in Her Violin Poem by Judith Skillman

Her teacher once told her she had a wolf
inside the f-hole, beneath the G string, a sylph

note crying out when she played, like a cough
on the lowest line, and she — too young for wolves —

their red fur and strange eyes, believed half-
way through the scales, up and down, that wolf

pulling at meat. Those teeth testing how tough
the ground, how buried a voice might become — safe

enough to walk away from low-growing shrubs of
the sanctuary? Why bother listening for the other wolf,

which was gray? She'd place one note against itself,
try to tell where the animal lived. She believed

it was true, the endangerment. And how, when rough
things happened, as they would, a certain colored wolf

might emerge from the Saint-Saens. Or the bluffed
Paganini, Tchaikovsky, other concertos, riffs

blended like hard liquor, and she a girl or a wolf.
Not sure which — the sly red one, the one harsh woof.