Your body knows a wolf
even if your eyes don’t see one.
You will feel it as you step
into a neighbor’s place.
Old man. Houseplants.
Come inside.
When the door closes, it hits you:
The air is too still.
A tension you cannot name.
The hairs on your arms standing up straight.
Sweat laces down the back of your neck,
little red riding hood without the cape.
Your body knows a wolf when it meets one.
Your mind floats free,
watches your mouth
admire the plants.
(Your Father’s advice to you as a teenager:
thumb in the eye thumb in the eye
stick your thumb hard in his eye.)
Your mind struggles, tells you:
be polite.
Asks, what could possibly be wrong?
Bad things don’t happen in the middle of the day,
in the home of an old man, do they?
Truth: everyone is polite in the grave.
Another truth:
I have to go
is a complete sentence.
Later, you tell your daughter, your girlfriends,
anyone who will listen —
do not question
when your body speaks
when something isn’t right –
and you will know the feeling –
because it is something that you cannot explain
within the bounds of logic
or being nice.
You get out of there.
You do not wait.
You run.
Your body knows a wolf when it sees one.
Gina de Mendonca writes poetry, micro prose and creative non-fiction from her home in New York. She loves a small story. When she isn’t reading and writing she likes to be out in nature finding small ways to interact with our wild world.
