chapter 1
poem
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
On Crying
Wolf
by
Don
Share
Don Share is senior
editor of Poetry
magazine. His
books include
Squandermania
(Salt Publishing),
Union (Zoo Press),
Seneca in English
(Penguin Classics),
and most recently a
new book of poems,
Wishbone (Black
Sparrow), and
Bunting’s Persia
(Flood Editions).
I'm not going to live
it down, but I'm not
going to live it up,
either: Remember
when you took us
apple picking, back
when there were
apples, when there
was picking, when
there was us? Even
though I didn't want
to be home, I wanted
to go home, to wallow
in the marrow of another
awful supper-and-dessert
instead of knucklewalking through history
with the angel of
Death, who's all ears.
I tell myself not to be
ashamed that my bite
is my bark, because if it
punctuates equilibrium,
all it means is that
I'm crying,
but not wolf.