I’m the werewolf of Cambridge,
Mass. Air thick
with the smell of honeysuckle,

I stare up at the lamppost moon
and howl as I do
at all things bright and vain.

It’s good to love
the way bugs slap themselves
against its plastic casing. Oh,

to have an exoskeleton. To fall
from the top of a desk or shoulder
and not be bruised.

To hear nothing
over the sound of my own buzzing.
I taste my sweat

then shake the saltwater off,
watch it spray
in jeweled droplets

across this circle of lamplight.
Oh, dirty sidewalk, Oh, gutter
of my dreams, leap at me

with splayed legs and paws.
Leap with a saliva grin.
I could be hard carnage.
I could nightmare this night.