The Inevitable Hunt

The adrenaline simultaneously

Numbed and heightened her senses.

She could not feel the rough

Grey wool fibres on her skin

Or the cold wind on her face.

But every foot fall on the powdered snow

Rang in her ear, the chilling sound

Of skilled hunters’ heavy panting

Signalled she did not need to look

To know they were on her heels.

Every bird song in the woods

Faded, so she could hear only

The noises needed for survival.

Time left no time to think.

Every reaction must be quick.

Hesitation is a cursed paradox:

If she survives — slow grief

If she succumbs — swift relief.

She could hear two front paws hit snow

Pulling two back paws forward.

She could feel precise eyes and

Maternal instincts detecting every weakness.

She could see hot breath steaming

Between canine teeth, clouds in frigid air.

Snowflakes unhurriedly shading

Evergreen trees in phantom white,

As the pack’s practiced manoeuvres

Surround her, time oblivious.

She felt her body leaving herself.

As her hunted soul floated through her flesh

To succumb to the wolves around her.

A family come to take her home.

Her eyes looked like they were leaving.

Milky blue edges, that were not there before,

Absorbed the fragile brown of her iris.

She looked past me as if

She saw me and saw through me.

And it wasn’t the kind of leaving that

Is full of pre-meditated guilt.

But the kind of leaving that

Asks for permission to go,

To the place where we can only travel

Alone: the inevitable otherworld.

Out of breath in her body, she let go.

And the wolves carried her soul away,

While her ribs fed the soil, and the woods

Continued living.