Cat Dixon
Don’t do what I did—pick at the oozing
open sore, clock out of family, work, and
chores while waiting around for the cure, for
the fur to fall away like a mushroom cloud
of purple tucked into the bay at sunset. Healing,
real healing, takes Neosporin and time.
People and trees have short memories—
isn’t that their best feature? Perhaps that’s the
culprit of these never-ending conflicts.
Are you the only werewolf pinching off
rations of affection and sleep? What
else does the wound, blooming again, provide?
Listen, put on the bandage. Give up those
long nights of hunting. Promise me that
old WWII grenade still has its pin in it.
***
Cat Dixon is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and the chapbook, Table for Two (Poet’s Haven, 2019). Recent work published in Sledgehammer Lit and Whale Road Review. She is a poetry editor at The Good Life Review.