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Boywulf by Sarah Watkins
his cologne haunts my favorite bluebird—
earthy, sick-sweet, like attic must.
moving her corpse from my front doorstep and into a tissue-cushioned shoebox,
I could see the flare of her wings as she was snared in her feather-laden bed
by cruel, frothy jowls past midnight; but it is not until I catch a flash of his sharp teeth
and am overwhelmed by that stale miasma that I will see her cobalt underbelly
staining bright fresh red and understand why it is the prettiest yardbirds,
comfortable in front-yard nests, that do not realize they are bitten
until the back teeth dig in.
Bio
An Arkansas native, Sarah Watkins is an educator by trade and a writer by necessity. She currently resides in northeast Arkansas with her husband. Her work has recently been featured in several publications, including Menagerie, Moss Puppy Magazine, and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal. Instagram: @sarahwatkinspoetry
Author's note
"Boywulf" is a reworking of a werewolf tale, from the perspective of someone in the man-wolf's life (working as an allegory for a predatory relationship). I first had the image of a dead bird, smelling of the speaker's lover. To me, it became a symbol of the past and the speaker's sense of worth, sacred—but dismissed and laid aside in favor of keeping the wolf-in-man's-clothing around. From there, the rest of the poem emerged.
