this dream reoccurs—
the day is latching closed
and the woods around my house widen
and darken
in the speckled light, wolf eyes
blink on
they don’t dance around
like streetlights
looking into them
you’re looking into 8 minutes ago
or a billion years, at something
wicked, deceptive, a dead star
I’m out and a mile away
the loop of road
loosening & loosening,
& walking, I tangle
if I make it back
in time, if I don’t find myself
howling,
I watch at the screen door them prowl the yard
the threshold is impassible
but there are other ways
and I listen hard
for claws at the pipes
when I wake their bodies
are pulled to the roadside
I watch them skinned & dissected
& their stomach contents examined for rabbit bones
so that is a jawbone unmuscled
so that is fear released under the fume hood
Megan Murphey is a poetry editor for JuxtaProse Magazine. She lives and writes in Kansas. This is her first publication.