Claiming 2

Seen afar as wan gleams in near-dark
Feral eyes shine, yellow and fierce.
Traveller forbear, keep silent, watch
Two she-wolves engaged in savage play,
Aware, if you are still, only of themselves.
The snap of jaws, the rasp of bare tongues,
The growls of flesh-lust, almost meat-hunger,
Almost an overpowering need to devour –
But no – this is a nature-ritual of uniting
Two wolf-bitches in animal carelessness.
See now how one bestrides the other,
Claiming, yet she knows she too is claimed!

O my side-companion, flank-to-flank we run,
O fellow-huntress, revelling in our games
Of predator and preyed-upon turn-about,
I am driven by this feeling in the core of me
That the heat of our breath burns more
When joined in one panting, rolling fury!
The sweat of our coats – a sole sharp scent,
Our jaws clamped round each other
As if in some frenetic death-waltzing –
Oh I blaze like hell-fire for you – what am I
If not a part of you? What can you be,
My claimed wolf, unless we be one animal?