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—