Werewolf

(for Paul)


Tonight, driving you home,
I think of the bogs beneath
a full moon.  The werwulf rising
above the mist on two legs,
the corps of a man not fully
human.
              Glancing at the wheel,
my hands, the bony fingers hard-
worked long past dark.   I
think   it could never happen
to me, but already ...


My hands are fur covered.  And,
I know this manhood
                                   will not be
long in coming.     You speak
of animals wiser than men:
You are a fox, a deer, and
you are hunted.  Tonight,
you find no rest, fearing,
I may turn out the lights
and go
              blindly,   able
to see in the dark.

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In 1721, Bailey's Dictionary defined werwulf as being "so named because man should be ware of them."

Dictionarium Britannicum: or a more compleat universal etymological English dictionary than any extant ... Explaining hard and technical Words, or Terms of Art, in all the ARTS, SCIENCES, and MYSTERIES following. 

Bailey's Dictionary rivaled Samuel Johnson's Dictionary in terms of its popularity in England.