Alistair Noon

The Wolves of Brandenburg

Resurgent: the sharks of the plain return.

Spores fill space with times new roman.

Their calls are a song which sounds

unsequenced, but disciplines its signs.

From a distance, take them for shepherd dogs,

but snout and bristle are form. That trot

is a swerve through water. With signals unspoken

they agree on their prey and, drunken,

spurt forward, as the will triumphs.

Authentic product of hunger and competition,

superior species, up in evolution,

what they want is a land for wolves,

to rule where their forebears ruled.

Of course, it’s not like it used to be:

once they ran the european forests,

now they encamp and train in thickets.

Authorities tag and database them. “What

do you expect? They’re wolves. Fangs

are a fashion.” One took a long cold look

from the far bank of a shallow lake.

Packs roam and breed,

lope across the patrolled borders

China (Reprise)

There were figures punting across a haze-brushed lake.

Karst protruded into the paper white.

As I strolled the roadway splashed into my shoes:

water and rock didn’t look like a catalogued painting.

Mist was chimney breath. The boatman sweated for money;

his singular face was one print from many,

an individual image cropped and filtered,

figurine in a burial mound, a familiarized homage.

From the things I’ve claimed from the things I saw,

which will you see? Which stairs will you climb?