Current Issue: Fall/Winter 2011

Wolf Cento  
Simone Muench

November stands at the door.

Tonight, the wolf is a solitary shadow

that spills between stone & revery

as bodies resume their boundaries.

Through open French windows

the forest edge enfolds blue animals

& behind the trees, the river—

its strange nakedness of wide

solitary margins. What have I known

but its bending? No more

second self, nor changing face,

no more wild lament of broken

mouths, red clouds. Scarcely

more than a word with no echo,

little tracks in the snow. Facedown,

I lick away the footprints.

 

[SOURCES: O.V. de L. Milosz /Luis Borges / Yves Bonnefoy / Philippe Jaccottet /Maxine Kumin /Gottfried Benn / Georg Trakl / Agnes Nemes Nagy / Anne-Marie Albiach / Roger Giroux / Rene Char /Eugene Guillevic / Valery Larbaud / Tamura Ryuichi / Gabriela Mistral]

 

Simone Muench is the author of The Air Lost in Breathing (Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry; Helicon Nine, 2000), Lampblack & Ash (Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry; Sarabande, 2005), Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010), and Disappearing Address co-written with Philip Jenks (BlazeVOX, 2010). She is a recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships, two Vermont Studio Center Fellowships, the 49th Parallel Poetry Award, the PSA’s Fine Lines Contest, the PSA’s Bright Lights/Big Verse Contest, and others. She directs the writing program at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies, as well as teaching at Northwestern University’s MFA program. She currently serves on the advisory board for Switchback Books, is an editor for Sharkforum, and serves as the faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review.