Where the Wild Things Grieve (1)

Part 1 of 2 part poem

The fox slept curled in the hollow of the wolf’s ribs,
a flicker of ember against shadowed fur.
They fit together as if carved from the same aching,
as if the gods had once stitched them from the same dream
and torn them apart just to see how beautifully they’d break.

The wolf watched over her,
a sentinel of midnight and hunger,
his body a shield against the bitter winds,
his heart a cage that only ever beat for her.
He would have razed the world to keep her safe,
would have torn the sky apart with his teeth
but even wolves cannot outrun fate.

One night, the fox was there.
The next, she was not.

He searched for her through snowfall and silence,
tracked phantom footprints through the bones of the earth,
but the wind had stolen her scent,
and the sky swallowed his howls like a grave swallows light.

Still, he waited.
Through winters that gnawed at his ribs,
through springs that never touched his bones,
he lay where she had once curled beside him,
where warmth had once softened his edges.
But love is a cruel thing to the wild-hearted,
a hunger that cannot be sated,
a wound that never truly heals.

And when the world finally swallowed the last of him,
when his body lay still beneath the quiet hush of moonlight,
some swore they saw a fox slip through the trees,
pausing only once to nose against his frozen muzzle
a ghost, a memory, a promise.

Or perhaps just the wind,
whispering the name of the one he loved
as if the echoes alone could bring her home.