Wolf
It pants near my shoulder
like a renegade
accustomed to long runs
and hard stops.
Familiar now,
thick-furred.
Prescient.
Then, I was much younger.
I thought some cunning
predator
dogged me through
grief's country.
I foundered, a doe in the quagmire,
a buck in thorns, bent double
by slashes
of heartbreak.
I wrenched my legs up
from the muck,
lurched forward
bloody and shaking.
Dread kept me moving--
fear of what would happen
if it caught me.
That is how it led me home
the first time.
by Holly L. Thomas
© 2007