Bad wolf

I expected something to crawl from the earth

and drag itself to me, bare

To blow down the house, the brick, the straw

Bad wolf dragging claws through muck

Bad wolf who is soft and gentle and not so bad at all

Wrap around my chest and hold me to the place

from which I came

be it murky waters or light which weights summer gold

Then sense would be made of everything

that there was some core

or centre to all this

There are pigs and bores, greedy

ripping open the delicate balance of earth

for oil and metal and making the wolf collect it

I wait hungry, hollowing

clearing a space to be filled with heat

Bad wolf did not choose

Bad wolf howls at night

I pull apart my ribs like needles

sewing a quilt of green, blue, brown

before it turns to rusted gates and tar at dusk

Knitting myself to the womb

where things are not measured

the place I was before, when I believed in everything