The Wolves and the Crucifix, by Romana Iorga

Untitled, by Keith Haring (USA) 1982

The Wolves and the Crucifix

The wolves keep coming to my door,
they keep coming. Today
they hold a cross like a trophy. 
Ink drips from their paws 
onto the cross. 

I don’t know what went wrong,
how it all happened. They asked 
for so little—for the drawn lines 
to merge over their heads, 
a sky to appear, 
some earth to support them.

They ran around in circles,
they bit each other’s tails. 
I gave them the sky and the earth.
I let them grow bigger 
than what I could see in myself.
Their black frames stumbled 
and fell on white ground. 

How could I have known
that a day would come
when they stretch their limbs
and walk on two legs?
How could I have known
that the white space within them
would grow large enough to resound?

I only saw their open mouths.
I only knew that they howled.

Romana Iorga
​
This poem was first published at The Gateway Review.

Originally from Chisinau, Moldova, Romana Iorga lives in Switzerland. She is the author of two poetry collections in Romanian. Her work in English has appeared or is forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Lunch Ticket, American Literary Review, and others, as well as on her poetry blog at clayandbranches.com.