Once you’ve met one werewolf

You know anyone might

Contort and change.

They say it’s always at the full moon,

But when you grow up collecting silver bullets

You learn different.

And you know of other transformations,

From more than just the story books.

Chased, women turn to trees in fear,

Or lose their shape, leaving only sound.

I have been an aspen, rooted.

My leaves quivering.

A sound some mistook for clapping

In the cool mountain air.

But aspens cannot load a silver bullet in a gun,

Or scream out in the middle of the night.

Leda was overcome by the godly, horny swan

Did she even see him coming?

And leaves have torn themselves from trees

In desperate grief.

Johnny Cash asked what he had become

And wondered at what harm would come from him.

He grew up, I’ve heard, with werewolves too.

So we both know there’s no such thing, really,

As the hunter or the hunted.

Felix Deiss