THE PUPPET OF THE WOLF

By Margaret Atwood

i

The puppet of the wolf

I have not made yet

encloses my right hand:

fur stubbles my wrists,

a tongue, avid, carnivorous,

licks between thumb and finger;

my knuckles bunch into eyes,

eyes of opaque flesh,

cunning but sightless.

The wolf is transparent, but visible:

my daughter sees it,

my right hand is the wolf.

She laughs at its comic

dance, at its roars

and piglet murders:

the bones of my left hand

squeak and crack in its grip,

in its gray teeth

its lack of mercy.

The last house crashes down:

the wolf is on fire,

my right hand is on fire,

the wolf is gone.

ii

Where has the wolf gone?

He disappeared

under the skin of my fingers,

my scalded werewolf hand,

which now, restored to normal,

slides like an ordinary

hand past the seahorse

and orange boat of the bath.

This is a miracle, there is never

any death:

the wolf comes back whenever

he is called,

unwounded and intact;

piglets jump from my thumbs.

My dying right

hand, which knots and shrinks

drier and more cynical

each year, is immortal,

briefly, and innocent.

Together with my left hand, its

enemy and prey, it chases

my daughter through the warm air,

and muted with soapsuds, lifts her

into the water.

1978