Wolves in Autumn

By: Colette

Skipping across ice-polished ponds
my paws rough with cold, I stepped into a bush
of raspberries and churned the tart fruit into nectar.

Bubbling over pond rocks the creek
flickered with fool's gold. Spotted rabbits
hid among the dying tall grasses, flicking their long
ears like cat-tails waving beside a rushing brook.

Sliding their slick bodies over polished pebbles
salmon jumped against the rushing current.
Leaping from the foamed rapids as if
enraptured in the chilled air.

Leaves clung to weary branches, it seemed the air
was too hazed, the sky a brazen shade of snow-pulsing gray.
Those bronzed leaves fell in breezes, littered among spindled
trunks matting the forest floor with a layer of soggy flora.

Moss thrived in that underworld, black beetles
crawling among its whiskers, chirping louder
than the knocking birds. We tossed our bodies among
the flailing leaves catching them like speeding
fireflies, our teeth biting at the nipped air.