If I were a wolf

Fun.

Fuuuuhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnn.

It would be fun.

Not fun like chasing girls or eating ice cream or chewing bubblegum outside of the library. Fun like slowly breaking every window in a house. Fun like watching someone on a cell phone walk gently into a glass door, crushing bones in her nose squeezing blood all over her shirt.

Fun like fighting.

Take your double-shot peppermint skim mocha whip and shove it right up your ass. I wouldn't get so angry about these things. To eat Arctic hare or not to eat Arctic hare, what's to be mad about?

Yippity yappity bitch-face dog, you weigh six pounds! Why are you so loud? And what are you so up-in-arms about anyway? Perhaps you're upset because the human holding onto your leash can lift you off the ground with one arm and does so quite frequently. That would piss me off too. Fortunately for me, most people don't come near me. I weigh ninety pounds and my eyes are white as a wraith. Although I'm quite calm, they see only the madness.

My friend Bill Stratton is part wolf. About a quarter, I think. One quarter bear, one quarter wolf, one quarter Native American and just a touch of Scottish. His reach makes him a dangerous boxer. He snores louder than a subway car. His eyes can

see.

right?

through you.

My eyes are yellow in the middle, as if there's a dying star being eclipsed by the black expanding cornea moon. The color darts out and dodges light in streaks and straws. It leaks onto the blue-green foundation behind it so on any given day they might be blue, green or something in the middle. But they're never white. They never peer out of snow drifts like sniper rifle tips, watching, waiting.

sure, i'll wag my tail and lick your hand. (Don't fuck with me.) yes. yesss. pet me. (I'll fucking kill you.) oh, is that food in your hand? sure, i would love some. (I will fucking tear out yourfuckingeyesandpissinyoureyesocketswhilegnawingyourkidneys.)

I'm not mad. I'm not. You think I'm mad

Because I walk to you and smell you and I know that when you take a piss, it leaks out for an hour afterwards.

Because when I look at you and you look at me, I'm seeing you and you're watching me.

Because when we go to the park and all the Golden Retrievers and Beagles and Shih-tzus run around licking their asses, I lay down waiting. Running on concrete isn't running, not like running across a thousand miles of snow and ice part of a team, part of a pack, part of a family.

Because if it came down to me or you, brother, it'd be you.