The wolves, they haunt me

slinking from the poem about a lonesome one’s journey

springing from the book about their predatory value to the whole.

She tells me it is no accident

their coming to me,

and I long to greet them again

in night school.

Like the time four yellow eyes on two fierce bodies

bore down on me, snarling their intentions

and I lurched into Child’s Pose

one arm extended in supplication.

They left me alone then;

perhaps they couldn’t see my eyes,

couldn’t discern without that split-second exchange

whether I was a willing sacrifice.

“Yield”, she says; it’s not surrender.

It’s yield.

And I am wondering how eyes can yield

in a body stiff with fear.