by David Chorlton
The wolf, having insufficient vocabulary
beyond the calls that leave a trail
of silver in the air, cannot understand
when it is spoken of as being expendable.
The wolf is a social animal
and has no room in its pack for division
between parties. It takes
what it needs but never has anything
left to collect interest. Wolf time
is the present moment; making platforms
or agendas irrelevant. To the wolf,
a kill is never veiled
in political justification. It does not
first deliberate, and afterwards
pretend remorse. A wolf
doesn’t know its range
is disappearing until
there isn’t anywhere to go
when it runs to the end of its breath.
Wolves have not romanticized their freedom,
they just hold on
to as much of it as they can.
It isn’t easy
when politics comes down
to trading them away in a deal
from which nobody
can vote them back to life.
David Chorlton is not happy with the budget deal. He lives and writes in Phoenix, increasingly with the sensation that his poems are distractions, but they huddle together into manuscripts, for instance From the Age of Miracles, which won the Slipstream chapbook contest in 2009.
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