WOLVES AT THE DOOR by LaVern Spencer McCarthy

Years-of-poverty-ago, a wolf

devoured our last chicken. 

Crouched in a swath of blood

and feathers, fangs bared, it defied us.

Galvanized, we bolted from the woods

screeched "Murder!" all the way home.

Mama stood at the cabin door

wiping her hands on a flour sack apron,

sharing our terror. The chicken had

been planned for dinner.

I remember former chickens whose necks

Mama had wrung, her upper lip turned 

downward like a beak, something reeling

in her eyes as a scrawny meal raced

its life away, out in the yard.

Before, I had managed to separate

the violence from my plate of drumsticks

and gravy, but not that night of no meat.

Shoving in collards that had not been forced

to suffer on my behalf, I watched Mama 

brush a tear away as she tried to instill in us

courage to face the wolves of our days.