Blue Daze (A Poem)

Blue Daze 

By Alira Cohen 

The wolf opens its mouth, and I see it is filled with sapphires and rabbits’ feet. Bright blue buds poke out from under the gums, and I know that he is a man beneath his animal skin. He sheds one layer, two layers, three layers, four layers, five layers, six layers. Under wolf’s skin is a hare, under hare’s skin is a fox, under fox’s skin is a jackal, under jackal’s skin is a lamb, under lamb’s skin is a man. A man who laughs like a boy, and stares at the treetops searching for birds. I look at him and wonder if I, too, could shed something away. I tear off skins and scales, I try to become something new. Skin that is dry, skin that is wet. Azure flesh I’ve never seen before rises from me; I’ve become the larger of two wolves. We dance, he and I, under a dripping sunset that drags us into the leaves above our flaming heads. My wolf jaws are greater, though they feel small before his. I don’t know why. From man, to wolf, to woman, to hare, to reptile, to bear, to jackal, to fox, to lamb, to swine, to wolf, to man, to woman, to somewhere in between. I lose myself in the clouds of what it means to be here and to be feeling this. I don’t know what I am, I couldn’t tell him. My wolf is the larger of two wolves, but it shrinks when I see the bright blue buds sticking out from under his gums. We are human now, and our skins interlock. I don’t know what or who I am as blue forms within me; am I disappearing into mold? His blood joins mine and smiles possess my bitter human jaws. I don’t know what I am. Does he know what he is? I give him the benefit of the doubt. Rabbits’ feet escape his stomach, which reveals its teeth just for me. Poking my head inside, searching his intestines with my eyes, wondering if he feels me in there. No more rabbits’ feet. No more flames atop our heads. We separate, and crash into the ground. He shows me his smile.