In the 3 a.m. dark,
I nuzzle you well, own my dream And the leafless stem of time.

In the soft breathing
your pads become my tread. your smooth, worn claws glisten in the starlight.

From Saginaw to McKinley your night echo wails
off the canyon wall.

I watch, through your dark cornea,
the elk pick in the mist-choked swamp.

And late at moon, wolf,

when the silence of my kind erases the present, I taste from your tongue
and feel the incisor cut living from the dead.