Poem: The Dream Survives
The little wild wolf thing
had to die.
It withdrew to the edges
and tried to hide.
She was small enough
to fit beneath my two hands
When I grabbed her
when I held her down.
My little wild wolf thing.
Not a pup.
Not a dog.
Not a rat.
Something wild and clever from farther back.
Something that still knew
how to turn its face toward the dark
and answer it.
A fox. A wolf. A wild thing.
And she had to die.
My hands knew how.
The back of the neck.
Quick. Fierce. Full of repulsive mercy.
Quickly.
Do it quickly.
Pulse through my whole body.
Sweat. Adrenaline.
The call of the wild to kill the wild.
I found the place where the spine gave way.
It was done.
The little call of the wild
came apart in my hands.
It was running away in my heart
even as her fur fell in tatters.
Run. Run. Run.
Even while I have to rest.
Even while I have to move slower.
Even while I have to dance in my bathrobe in my kitchen.
Not on beaches. Not beside bonfires.
Run. Run. Run.
While I ride up and down hills or
dive and swim blind in murky waters.
Run. Run. Run.
While I sweat under a fan
my skin prickling
from its changing.
Yes,
little wild one.
Yes.
I want more.
I want more too.
But for now,
run, run, run
in the chambers of my heart
even while I have to keep
the dinners made,
the schedules laid,
the obligations played.
Run, run, run
for me
through the chambers of my heart.
I’ll play the right songs.
We’ll have our adventures yet.
But right now,
I need you
inside me,
keeping me alive and wild.
I had a dream, and my heart was racing. I sat with the discomfort and the images until I came to an understanding: the brain may simply have reverse-engineered a story to explain a body already in distress. Menopause can bring the racing heart, the heat, the sweat; the dreaming brain had plenty of recent material to work with. The small wolf-like animal was probably a composite—a border collie or sheltie, the howling wolf ring I recently bought, and even the boiled chicken I had prepared for my dog, my hands working through the little bones and cartilage, the vertebrae-like pieces separating beneath my fingers. I had also just finished a poem about being with the wild. And while I am with the wild, I also know that much of my wildness has to be cut short right now because I have children, a family, a household, and only so much energy. That, too, is a restriction. Still, I bike. I swim. I dance. I lift weights. I cook. I drink wine. I find ways to inhabit that wildness wherever I can. What I am not doing is disappearing into mountain parks or boarding airplanes to wander through other countries, though I know how deeply I would love to travel. I know that part of my heart. But I also know the life I am living now. The wild thing in me is not dead, dying, or being killed. The dream offered a nightmarish image assembled by a brain experiencing physical stimuli and trying to make sense of them. But the image still communicated something. And once awake, I used it creatively.
