When Wolves Tire of Dressing Like Sheep
by Chloe Williamson
When Wolves Tire of Dressing Like Sheep
We are fluent in language of predators,
Sharpening imaginary knives against the imaginary edges of our collarbones.
We scrape at our stories until they lose all their fat,
Until they are all bone and teeth,
Until they burn in the telling.
We are hard-hearted women,
Terror, calcified, becomes rage.
Even our bones are angry,
We are practiced and poisonous: Don’t-fuck-with-me
Sneering in our steel-toed boots,
Calloused fingertips twitching over switchblades
We are uncommonly familiar with destruction,
Self-taught masters in the art of violence,
In this belated cultivation of self-defense.
You will only underestimate us once.
Chloe Williamson
Chloe Williamson lives in Boston, where she writes about the intersection of memory, place, and identity. Her poetry and prose has previously appeared in The Wellesley Review, El Portal, the Brushfire Literature and Arts Journal, the Rising Phoenix Review, the West Texas Literary Review, and Ghost City Review. She tweets at @c_m_williamson.