42
Gulo Gulo
Amanda Yskamp
I would write a poem about wolverines
if only to sing their many names:
gulo gulo, carcajou, quickhatch,
glutton, nasty cat, or to tell of the bull moose
a wolverine can take down, the snowpack
she burrows in to bear her kits,
but then I would have to bring the bad news.
I can’t, not today, when I would look
to the wolverines’ teeth and claws
for ferocity, their stink defense,
their legendary tracks going on and on
back to history and forward,
longing for an unreachable moon.