The Fur Trade
I prodded your pelt,
shared the soft pain
of an electric shock –
the buzz of currents passing.
I saw
(I saw, I think, I saw)
you once in the forest
with your back
arched against
the rough grain of bark.
Your milk fur was sweet
so I twirled you
in my palms and hummed.
Fur bristle; fang drip.
I tore the raw jag of a fresh scrape,
dripped your honey mane
into the open pulp of skin.
I burrowed in sting, searching
for the bursts of bees.
(The forest was always lapping
at the shores of our not-forest.)
Catching cuts, throat-awed,
I was lost in the green–
ever, ever awed–
until I saw you curled
around the throat
of a woman with her hair white.
(But I was once the teeth nipping
at the nectar of your neck.)