On Crying Wolf

 
I am mad
and must be forgiven— 
mad as the lamb
in a wolf’s throat.
Again, I’m over
the idea of surrender,
how the lamb bleats
to nothing. The grass bends
in sorrow with dewed
blood on its bladetips,
new trail for the hunters
to build a fence around the carcass.
There will be no grave
for the helpless— 
so help me not.
It’s not my time
yet—I’ll wait to break
like fifty thousand starlings
hatched in the same nest.
Or I’ll bury the wolf
deep into the woodchips,
deep as the promise
I must make to myself:
run. Gather my legs
in a slingshot and rush
till no one hears my rustling
on the ground.


by Carly Joy Miller 

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Carly Joy Miller is a SoCal native through and through. She is an assistant managing editor for the Los Angeles Review, a contributing editor for Poetry International, and a founding editor of Locked Horn Press. She is also the co-curator of the reading series, The Brewyard. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Third Coast, Vinyl, Linebreak, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere.