Everyone says the deep woods are soothing –
you won’t hear leaf blowers or car sirens throbbing.
You’ll slide into sleep to the singing of crickets,
untroubled by mowers or Mom’s drunken sobbing.
While I lie in my tent, wind tears at the canvas,
and I hear something savage creeping outside,
scuffling the dry leaves and sniffing my trail.
Mom could sleep better, she said, if I died.
What is it that howls out in the darkness –
What is it saying? Why does it prowl?
It loves the full moon, fresh meat and hot blood
howling for howling, the best kind of howl.
Late Sunday night when my roommate’s bare foot
awakened the green snake I’d hid in his bed,
he screamed, and I howled back a maniac’s howl,
the shriek of a demon freed from my head.
The demon is me and I’m starting to like him.
He answers the night with a shriek from my bowel,
a howl for the moon, fresh meat and hot blood-
howling for howling, the best kind of howl.
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