William Greenway
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
—W. B. Yeats
Because as grandma wolf
I snarled from a Halloween photo
every time she opened the fridge,
the first time my only sister’s first
child’s first child ever saw me
she screamed, ran away in terror,
called me the wolf man, as if she knew,
through her blood, my favorite movie:
old gypsy woman, pentagram in my hand,
childless, aloof, and alone,
my cocky cynicism
transformed by a pregnant moon.
And I do have a beard
and that widow’s peak, and a tendency
to change moods abruptly, but, hey,
who hasn’t?
Now, she thrills to the way I howl
and growl as I chase her through the house,
shrills in mock fear. Mock because,
though she hasn’t yet seen The Daughter
of Dracula or The Bride
of Frankenstein, she somehow knows
about the silver bullet,
the one she was born with.