m a r r i a g e (wolf part three)

And as it always always goes,

In warmer lands or in the snows

Once Lust is slaked, then something goes

From Lovers within their afterglow

Find their dwelling full,

Not of bedroom love

or newly minted  heirlooms, memories  of play

But a brood of hairy snappers

With to-die-for eyes

Beseeching milk and meat,

Making their own chaos

Shredding the fragile truce

Between Queen and her Lover, Wolf.

Child-cubs grow

Flicking between wolf and human

Wheedling and whining

To whoever gives them what they need.

Children of ferocity and lone grandeur ,

Show no mercy to one another,

You can’t use magic to feed your kids

So Witch becomes mother,

Magic redundant

Feeds Cubs food and love

And so much more

Wolf–as-human fights

Human-as–wolf

When wolf: no love, just find them meat

And watch them fight

Protecting the strongest:

Wolf training wolf.

When human,

A heart full of  love

Cuddling, cradling,

Play fighting

Sleeping with the runt

And feeding it the choicest scraps,

Grooming and combing

All their young pelts

As Witch mother works white boned fingers

To an even more white boned look,

She loses the leisure to alert herself

That Wolf and Human fight,

No time to renew

Lust’s spells to bind him to himself

And his gorgeous and forbidden

twofold self to her.

Wolf, rubber-banding fast

Between mind and instinct

Between skin and pelt

Sees witch, less as lover

And more of an annoying den-mate,

Who howls in her sleep

And leaves her bones in other’s beds.

But human irritation

habitually brushed off lightly by a good night’s sleep

When seen through wolf’s fight and flight,

Became ferocity itself.

And without a word e’er being said

Parents’ rage make child-cubs cower

And matters come to dreadful head

as mum and dad fight for their power

Teeth are bared , a wand is raised

And as one both scream “behave”

And then a deep shudder is felt

As human wins, wolf drops his pelt.

Hurls wolfskin into witch’s face

And turns and walks out from that place,

I’d have cut it off you, if you’d stayed

She screams, in rage, I’ll see you flayed

Wolf knows nothing but his need to go,

Cue distant footprints across the snow.