Mastering the Hunt
In Britain, a "red woven hood" was the distinguishing mark of a prophetess or priestess. The story's original victim would not have been the red-clad Virgin but the hunter, as Lord of the Hunt.
—The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
by Lisa Chavez
We smell him before
we sight him—human rank,
scent threaded with death.
The grandmother waits in the cave’s mouth
on her haunches, scratching
at fleas. We gather
in the shadows, watch him
approach. He is a northerner, pale
mane tangled with leaves, hair
on his face darker and ragged.
He’s dressed in fur—on his head
a cap fashioned of a wolf’s face,
wizened by death. Empty eyes
above his own. Some of us
turn away from that gaze
He is the master of the hunt,
separated from his pack.
It’s dusk, early autumn. We streak
forward, register his surprise.
From the cave, the grandmother howls
with laughter. He cocks his head.
Looks at us. What does he see?
Our beauty. Our flowing hair
and red caps. The tilt of our eyes,
golden and curious. He relaxes.
One of us nuzzles his throat;
another lowers herself before him
with beguiling glance. He feels
our hands, our tongues. When
he sees our teeth he falters, but we
have already relieved him
of his clothes, his spear.
When the grandmother joins us,
we finish what we’ve begun.
Brindled in blood, we lick
ourselves clean, our bellies
distended as if with stone.
Then we rise, shake off
these pale skins and lope
away beneath the trees,
the sky pelt dark, and the moon watching
like a wolf’s amber eye.
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Published in Red Rock Review and Hick Poetics (Lost Roads Press, 2015). I have long been interested in fairy tales, especially ones that involve animals and transformation. This published poem was part of a series I was writing about animals and transformation. I always rooted for the animals as a child, and was particularly disturbed by the wolf’s death in “Little Red Riding Hood.” I suppose this poem is my way of finding justice for the wolves.
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LISA CHAVEZ is a poet memoirist from Alaska now living in the mountains of New Mexico with a pack of Japanese dogs. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of New Mexico and is the author of In An Angry Season (University of Arizona Press, 2001) and Destruction Bay (West End Press, 1998).