I

Three wolves lopped past me

passing a dead rabbit

like a baton

three wolves and then the shrill silence of alaska 

II

the northern lights

move through the higher hemisphere like an orgasm

and earth's legs quiver,

birds move south for the winter

but aurora borealis means nothing to the wolf

with a vocabulary of rabbit and blood and murder

III

the wolves paint the snow yellow and red

and the earth adjusts to cover their shapes

white against white until the horizon

death cradled behind their ears

half-limping as they pull in a kill

IV

The arial light show climaxes against polaris' indifference