Saara Myrene Raappana’s “The Wolf in the Trailer”

The wolf in the trailer,
tired of drinking every meal, licked the last bowl
’til it was dry and fled into the darkened woods
because she couldn’t stand it here
(lamplight like snakes biting her eyes)
but soon returned because forest at daybreak fills
itself with such undimmability.
Panting with the kind of pain that makes
people forget which lie they told themselves,
she moves from chair to chair as if a ray
were chasing her (her feet crack scattered dishes like
they’re chipmunk bones). The paramedics, when
they force the door, will find her curled as if
in sideways prayer, head resting in a spot
of dawn so clear that they’ll mistake her fur
for hair. One man will crouch and touch two fingertips
below her ear to prove no sun beats there.