After the perihelion
The consumption of our stead
The blazing maw
Melting the white into red, starving

The climax of a plague
Incurred to my people
An undeserved superstition
Derived from the beast

Standing in the sparse treeline
The curtain of snow
The illusion of ethereal innocuity
Coating her as she watched

I was given a rifle
I gave my word
I followed
I, clinging

North, she walked
Haunted by dancing parades
Made of the wind’s ravage
Blown into translucent phantasms

My vision succumbed, eyes white
The tundra collecting its tax
Falling to my knees
I traced the lines of her paws in the snow

I would find her
Through all the mutilation
My obscure pride and absurd separation
I would find her

My hands went black
My stomach went empty
My brain went numb
My feeling became just being

Sprawled across the tundra's great expanse
There I lay
There she came
The bestial far side of the bridge

Her breath was warm, incinerating into my face
Her tongue like fire, dragged across my wind-beaten flesh
She was chiseled from an essence of wisdom
Estranged from anything a human could know

She knew me better than I
She dragged me into the stream
My inoculation cleared, anew
And there was only her world

O, how vestigial I was in her world
How my power as human was stripped
The skin turned black then white
And it came off and became the ice

I used to believe in holiness and unholiness
I was such a fool
The tundra knew the truth
The wolf decoded it

I was such a fool