A Howl of Reds and Fear

Mud-caked paws, streaked with rusted crimson

Scampering on the sinking silt of the forest floor

Wind slaps back matted fur, pushing away gray, chapped lips to reveal daggered incisors

That gnash in desperate panic

Shadows of death and fear and anger close in around

Choking off all other sides but straight ahead

Bang! The wicked shot of fiery iron kills with a howling hunger

Bang! Bang! Bang! Another down, then a fifth, and a sixth

The pack of twelve picked off one by one,

Hunters hunted by the prowling Huntsman

Bloody trails stalk the escaping wolves,

Steeping the forest in hideous swaths of reds

Acrid smoke clears, gray ash and bone whisk away and dissipate

Like tendrils of blood in water until one last cub is left in the barrel’s sights

His full-moon eyes dart frantically in his flight, and his chest,

Full of air from his inhaling, pounding heart

Cannot breathe

The failing cries around him have deafened his pointed ears,

All sounds contorting into the same white noise of surrender

But he can hear Death calling him,

How it whizzes towards him in a searing bullet that slashes

His snout, his eyes, his heart…

* * *

There is a tale,

Of a lone wölfin who survived the midnight hunt

Of bloody prints and fur coats

Of silver bullets and forest reds

In the night,

When they tuck their children into bed and dim the lights down low,

They can hear the howl of the wolf rebounding off the cage of twisted woodland vines

Though a trapped cry of mourning or fury or resolution, they cannot tell

But that it sends shivers down their skeletal spines

In the daytime,

Wood-wandering villagers swear they can glimpse

A flash of grey fur worn with depression and grief,

Rough-patched from violent thorns dragged in his haste to escape

Snatches of piercing yellow eyes, marred by a jagged scar, hang between the ferns and hemlock Boring into the flesh of those who stray the path

They feel their hair stand on its end,

Anticipating an attack by sharp fangs ripping

But it is in that instant he vanishes,

Leaving lingering, chilling questions––

Is he but a parting apparition

Lost to the wild insanity of the woods?

Still the Huntsman vows to track him down,

To kill the last of the big bad wolves who do nothing but howl and steal food

To be declared the hero of the village, adding yet

Another pelt to his collection of grotesque trophies

* * *

The wolf watches the village from the jutted cliff that looms like

A sword poised to strike

Those yellow irises which burn with hatred and disgust to

Conceal jaded sockets of fatigue and misery

He has become a figment, wasted away into the dust and the decay

The wolf who forages in starvation and faces nothing save cruelty

From the trappers that roam the devilish woods

He had learned to bare his teeth and growl,

To snarl and bark, to scare away those who come near

But the predator is the prey, for though his once-soft fur had bristled,

And his sinewy legs had muscled,

Within, he is only a frightened cub;

Alone, lost, broken, and

Cowering in upon himself

All this time, he runs, runs, runs away,

Fleeing from the Huntsman in an endless cycle of the chase

His dirty paws finally swift enough

To outrun the man with the weapon of fire and death

But how he tires of running, of hiding, of remaining too afraid to strike back

And oh, how his heart broils for vengeance at all the Huntsman stole,

This passion growing more and more over long years of solitude and agony

He remembers the aftermath of the massacre all those years ago,

The evil branded in his mind

As he closes his eyes, he can taste, can smell,

The smoke and the blood and the metal and the fear

He remembers the pain of the bullet which narrowly missed his heart, and the sight of his

Cold, hot blood pouring out along with his soul

But the forest was bathed in more blood than he, its liveliness turned into

A morgue of wolves with graves of littered carcasses

He remembers dashing to scavenge for survivors,

His weak heart just hoping, waiting, wanting....

Only to witness the strewn bodies of the pack, their furs peeled away and misshapen by the Huntsman into taxidermied cloaks of grinning teeth and crossed-out eyes

“Awoooo” the wolf had cried in melancholic melodies, seeking comfort from the moon

That moon which sees everything but does nothing

And though he was still breathing, he had been killed that night;

His vow to make the Huntsman pay as the sole indication of his existence * * *

Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red Riding Hood

Whispered rumors of a girl around the village, blushing

A gullible rosy countenance that complements those garments stained with the forest blood

“What lovely eyes you have, ”

“What soft, dainty hands you have,”

“And what a white toothy smile you have, my dear,”

The villagers would remark

To the child who was given everything

As the daughter of the Huntsman who took everything

Little Red Riding Hood—

The perfect little child beloved by all she meets

Oh how he hates it.

Innocence and purity had long been dead to him,

Stripped away with the murder of his family

His once pure soul, now exchanged for one split between

Fear and revenge

He hears of her kindness to strangers in the village, how she never once questions their intentions

He scoffs, thinking what a fool she is to trust so blindly,

Acting as if no one could possibly harm her

While he is always expecting someone to harm him

So he would teach her a lesson in life

This little girl who is the shining joy of the Huntsman

How could an animal so cruel as the Huntsman be so humane with a child?

It is wrong, thinks he, for the Huntsman to have happiness when he had let him suffer

And it is in that day, the wolf sees red other than the splattering blood that plagues his memories Dawn melts away his cowardice to turn into malicious machinations,

For he would take the love that the Huntsman had reaped

A deception, a ruse, and then he would finish the Huntsman

Once and for all

* * *

The Wolf waits in the woods scenting fresh pine and sweet revenge,

Envisioning his plan unfolding; how the

Red-cloaked child will walk into his doomed trap,

Unknowing, toward her death and the death of her father

What big teeth you have, he imagines Little Red saying

The better to eat you with, he will reply

And swallow her whole

Then the Huntsman will follow in pursuit, finally alone, to the cottage where the Wolf

Awaits with open jaws and sharp claws

What a thrill in his heart he feels, what a newfound sense of living

How he relishes the power to be Der Jäger now...

* * *

No. No—all was lost, everything gone wrong

So terribly, terribly wrong

And now the wolf is back where he was before,

A haunted memory replaying before his eyes

He is cut open and bleeding, with heavy stones weighing his stomach down Pursued again by the Huntsman, like he has been for all eternity

He stumbles to a well, its glazed depths plunging deep, deep, deep

Into the ground where lost souls would drown and be forgotten

The well of wishes and dreams and hopes instead his solitary grave

A black cavity that would swallow him into its rounded jaws of splintery stone

I’m dying, he panics, and begins to cry

Trailing tears that intertwine with the trickle of blood down his muzzle

On his last breath, he sees his family,

A mirage, but it seems too tangible to be a hallucination

They stand before him, extending their clean paws, calling him

Their welcome his beacon to end his own agony

He feels their warm embrace and gentle nuzzles

The imagined heat so familiar but foreign after its long absence

If only he could depart from this lonely and miserable reality,

Become overwhelmed to the swelling darkness that holds his light

Then he’d be with his family again; his brothers, his sisters, his mother, father—belonging

Home, a voice in his head murmurs longingly

And he realizes that was all he wanted in the first place;

Somewhere he would be loved, not hunted

So he takes a final inhale, manages a whimper not a howl, shuts his eyes to the red of blood,

And smiles.