VISITING AMBER

(photo (c) Ralf Schmode)


I want to revisit the house
Where the white wolf lives.

I only went there once.
She came right up to me
And sniffed my hand.
I called her “Sweetheart,”
Though her name was Amber.
She looked right
Into my eyes,
Followed me
All over the house.
Her owner – if you can call her that –
Said, “She must like you.”

I also met a caged squirrel
With a broken back
Who’d come there to retire.
(The lady of the house
Worked for the Game Commission).
Amber seemed to have no interest
In the squirrel,

But, when I sat on the sofa, tried
To climb onto my lap.
“She’s not allowed up on the furniture,”
The lady said -- like anyone
Could stop her.
Amber kept her back legs
On a hassock, lay her head
Against my chest. I’d go home
covered in white fur.

“Weren’t you afraid?”
A friend would ask me later.
“No,” I said. “She was
So beautiful.” And she was smaller
Than I thought she’d be,
And seemed so dignified
And strangely delicate.

My only disappointment in the visit?
She found no reason to howl.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

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