JUVEN
Cry Wolf
by M.P. Armstrong
after “the wolf’s postscript to ‘little red riding hood’” by agha shahid ali
first, grant me my sense of history:
we are all born
with the megaphone mouth
& scold-inviting shout
of a shepherd.
all born klaxons,
searing & necessary,
righteousness like carbonation
broiling in our bellies:
i did it for posterity;
hoping that a bare tongue
& truth rolling off like seawater
would loosen up a few wolves’ canines.
but then we see their faces
flushed with blood,
their ears dripping with it,
their hearts thirsty for it,
& we realize that we’d sooner
stuff our mouths with sheepskin
than scream again.
& we borrow those mouths,
turned timid and temporary,
for kindergarten teachers and a clear moral.
for our lives turned fables,
warnings of sheep
disappearing down cavernous throats
as quick and smooth
as gulps of water.
for our carcasses, melting
into the meadow and forgetting
the blue of the sky
where we focused our eyes
so we didn’t have to see,
the rip of our dignity
pulled from its socket,
the way they laughed
before we were swallowed.
we are all born
with the megaphone mouth
& scold-inviting shout
of a shepherd.
all born klaxons,
searing & necessary,
righteousness like carbonation
broiling in our bellies:
i did it for posterity;
hoping that a bare tongue
& truth rolling off like seawater
would loosen up a few wolves’ canines.
but then we see their faces
flushed with blood,
their ears dripping with it,
their hearts thirsty for it,
& we realize that we’d sooner
stuff our mouths with sheepskin
than scream again.
& we borrow those mouths,
turned timid and temporary,
for kindergarten teachers and a clear moral.
for our lives turned fables,
warnings of sheep
disappearing down cavernous throats
as quick and smooth
as gulps of water.
for our carcasses, melting
into the meadow and forgetting
the blue of the sky
where we focused our eyes
so we didn’t have to see,
the rip of our dignity
pulled from its socket,
the way they laughed
before we were swallowed.
MP Armstrong is a disabled queer writer from Ohio. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Perhappened, Prismatica Magazine, and Hominum Journal, among others, and their debut chapbook, who lives like this for such a cheap price?, is published by Flower Press (2021). Find them online @mpawrites and at mpawrites.wixsite.com/website.