“Catch a Wolf”

by Brenda Coultas

I take a book
in hand and
want to sleep.
I belong to the
daylight, and
to the smallest
species of
woodpeckers:
which during
mating season,
make a racket
drilling into a
dead oak, I be-
long to a fami-
ly of tiny
noise makers
it took more
than a year to
quiet my mind
to be a beast
of daylight
rather than a
nocturnal
(drunken) ani-
mal, I became
the daylight
beast of
spiral note-
books, wear-
ing a candy
necklace with
the vowels
chewed off.