wolfen
the hair mounding between my legs
makes me dwell on my lycanthropy
i black out and remember nothing
of what the neighbor boys leave
tangled there :: candy wrappers fool’s
gold the silver head of a cotton mouth
their blood and mine sperm that isn’t
yet sperm and so it’s un-listable
i imagine myself in this black lapse
(all wolf) falsely lustful and gnashing
i want to eat them wholly
and wake up as what I eat
by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
makes me dwell on my lycanthropy
i black out and remember nothing
of what the neighbor boys leave
tangled there :: candy wrappers fool’s
gold the silver head of a cotton mouth
their blood and mine sperm that isn’t
yet sperm and so it’s un-listable
i imagine myself in this black lapse
(all wolf) falsely lustful and gnashing
i want to eat them wholly
and wake up as what I eat
by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
Kayleb Rae Candrilli is a recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award and is author of Water I Won't Touch (Copper Canyon, 2021), All the Gay Saints (Saturnalia 2020), and What Runs Over (YesYes Books, 2017). What Runs Over won the 2016 Pamet River Prize and was a 2017 Lambda Literary finalist for Transgender Poetry and a finalist for the 2018 American Book Fest's best book award in LGBTQ nonfiction. All the Gay Saints was the winner of the 2018 Saturnalia Book Prize, selected by Natalie Diaz. They are published or forthcoming in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, TriQuarterly, Puerto del Sol, Bettering American Poetry, The Boston Review, and many others.