Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Wolf's Nocturne

At the end of her life,

the moon becomes

a blade, a jaw

 

of remember

red of rooms of

want you

 

I walk into a lake

of light looking

for (I can’t)

 

you, swelling siren

in the night’s throat

I must walk alone

 

along the edge

of a demon’s mind

bordered by a vein

 

of stars; show me

how not to love,

how to be a wife

 

to silence, how to dive

into the backward sea

and seclude myself

 

in a mirror; how long

can the cone of time

stretch reliving an error

 

how long the dawn

how long before the

too late light

 

dream with me, bell, water,

bell, I follow the white

cat to the crossroads:

 

where do I go, little

song? To the one who

calls you, the one you love

 

Found In Volume 52, No. 01
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Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
About the Author

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal is the author of the poetry collection Beast Meridian, and a recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award. She is a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellow and lives with her son in Los Angeles, where she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California.