In Her Element
She was a wolf in the snow.
She liked being a wolf in the snow.
It suited her being a wolf in the snow
because she was a wolf in the snow.
The snow liked having her in it, and she liked
being in the snow. The wolf in her liked
it and she liked it, because the wolf in her
and her were one and the same. She was
a wolf in the snow. And the footprints she
made in the snow were wolfish ones
and both the wolf in her and the snow in her
liked the wolfish footprints she made
and sometimes when she was wolfing
through the snow she would see
snow falling in front of her face and behind
her back and covering her wolfish footprints
but she didn’t mind because it only meant
that she could make fresh wolfish footprints
and making fresh wolfish footprints was what
she loved to do: she was a wolf in the snow.
And once she tried not being a wolf
in the snow but it didn’t suit her at all;
the footprints she made weren’t wolfish
ones and the snow that fell in front and
behind did not cover them over but left them
there forever like footprints on the moon
and suddenly she was no longer a wolf
in the snow but a wolf on the moon
and she hated it, she hated it,
because all her wolfish prints just stayed
forever behind and in front of her.
But fortunately some astronauts came
and captured her in a special moon wolf net
and took her back to the Earth
and to the snow and once more she was a wolf
in the snow and she was happy
she was a wolf in the snow.
She was a wolf in the snow.
Mona
Her softness sets her apart,
seeping through her skin and making her,
In all the areas we instinctively seek focus,
little more than a blur,
Her mouth like a series of mouths
overlaid, her whole face in fact
quietly struggling towards a form
and failing, forever, to find it.
It’s as though a thousand women
were within her, none of them quite
distnictive enough to stake her claim
on our lingering attenton.
Which is precisely why we linger.
We can’t dismiss her nor she us.
We are left hanging and to our surprise
we find ourselves inexorably sinking
into that warm, alien landscape
with its snaky paths and mountains
barbed with light, our heartbeats
slowing, our faces all smiles.
______________
Andrew Pidoux was born in Buckinghamshire in 1974. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1999, and his book of poems, Year of the Lion, was published in 2010 by Salt. Since 2016, he has been living in Guangzhou, China, where he teaches English at Guangdong University of Finance and Economics.
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