There is no greater love than the love a wolf feels for the lamb it doesn’t eat
HÉLÈNE CIXOUS
I.
They say when the Spaniards came we thought them
gods. They came with sincere eyes, but insincere
mouths & cocks they knew something about the
universe & we only knew about the earth, not
about the stars unless being guided by them is
a kind of knowing, but no, in those days the stars
knew us more than we them. & that might be the
difference between the wolf & the lamb, our
relationship to bounty. I think what I want
to say here is that to the wolf go the spoils & yet
there is something about being a lamb—the danger
the never knowing when the wolf will be hungry enough.
How do you not love yourself when you constantly
survive your undoing just by being precious?
I don’t like coyness, if I love you I will take your mouth
first because that is where the breath lives, does that
make me a wolf, or does this: when I am near you
I shackle my intentions & feasts with my eyes, I won’t
dare eat of your flesh. How could I? It would be like
the snake that eats itself from the tail, eventually it
chokes on everything, its rough scales, its heart all
colonized & tender, the whole world becomes its
body half-eaten & dragging in the dirt—