one summer, i met a girl who knew palmistry.
her hair was the color of ink.
her mouth was a slice of forbidden fruit.

she held my hands like they were special,
and she looked at me like maybe i was too.
she told me that i was a wild thing,
that i was braver than i thought,
that i was greedy in a way
that would break someone’s heart someday.

i asked her how she saw all that
in the lines of my palms,
and she said she didn’t.
she said that it was in the
chipped nail polish,
the bruises on the heel of my hands,
on my bloodied knuckles.

she said that she saw
the beast in me.
i told her that if i were an animal
i would be a field mouse,
small and skittish.
i said i would be a cat,
body curled tight and ready to run.

she spent the rest of the summer
calling me wolf girl.
she said that all of us
could be wild if we wanted to be,
some of us were just louder about it
than others.

the last time i saw her,
we sat on the dock while the sun
dipped behind the trees and the lake
went as smooth as glass and the only
sounds were my pulse and the whisper
of her breath and the whir of cicadas and
the sweet melody of anticipation crescendoing
around us.

she curled her fingers around mine and
pressed her ear to my chest.
she said she could hear
the wolf inside me, louder than ever.
we sat there in the dark
for hours.
i unlearned the mouse girl.
she taught me how to howl.

Wolf Girl

by Auriel Haack