The Change, by Lana Dean Helm

“The Change” was published in Wolf Warriors IV by Thurston Howl Publications in 2017 under Lana Dean Highfill

 

Does a werewolf get brand new skin

with each full moon? If yes,

then, oh, to be a werewolf…

to live within this shell

you so delicately caress with passion

and then to slough it off

like a silk thrown to the floor: divine.

 

Under the skin of a werewolf

flows a blood in cycle with the sky.

Oh, to have blood with more purpose

than keeping this heart alive,

to burst forth from the stained

landscape of this body, to become

a huntress, giving song to the night.

 

Or does a werewolf slip back into

herself again and again, aging

as any woman does, graying

at her temples, no longer supple

to the touch? Then, no thank you.

I’ll stay in this skin of mine

and save but a whisper

for the deceitful hand of the moon.

---

Lana Dean Helm holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR. She writes poetry in Southern Indiana, where she is an English professor, piano teacher, and dog sitter. Her interests include live music, comic books, sci-fi, and marine biology. Lana received a nomination for the 43rdAnnual Pushcart Prize for her poem, “Shadows of Birds.” Her poems have been published by Weasel Press, Tigershark Publishing, Thurston Howl Publications, Sediments Literary-Arts Journal, Slipstream Press,Lost Tower Publications, Halcyon Days Magazine, Blue Horse Press, you are here: the journal of creative geography, Three Drops Press, & Rose Red Review.