after torrin a. greathouse
—here is an alternate gaze at the wall: behind it the wolves have run out of their breath, in their
fangs, a clean disaster: violence mapped into assemblage. the first lie the rabbis to us was: we were
born into the true core of a largeness. no—we were born into a revelation replaying itself with every
bloodshed, with every cry of a new born—the angels of destiny standing there, a parcel wrapped
beneath their lungs, & out, a destiny is breathed into the child—we are born into the plot of a
mystery. everything about the wolves is a daring: a stillness inside a violence, a shifting inside the
stillness, the lone flower in all of these, blooming in the very dark of the wolvee’s howl. the lie is: the
wolves are bad. in one folklore: the wolf pulled the child out of the river, licked its wetness into
warmth, & took it to the village square. salvation is a common. even the devil is a true protagonist in
some other stories, sheds off his scales, pulls off his horns, & disguises as a messenger. no, the
danger isn’t in association, but in assumption. in his book, the rabbi draws a scale, ticks the lamb, &
Xs the wolf. in the story, the wolf is lonely, his clan is lonely, & we, of course, writers of wild tales,
imagined a river of blood, the wolf emerging from it. what is it then with our histories, our stories
preying what does not fit in our gardens? reflect: are we all even not a haunting—a hollow voice
startling the cub into stray? one & two & three, but there are not enough bridges to bring us back
into the palace of our own truth—all the tracks end & restart inside the rail that is our lives. here are
true lightning & true thunder & true wolves—here could be beauty where you have made a
butchery. here, the tinker who sleeps at night, dreaming of mending his young’s souls—here, the
wolf, at the other end of the wall, out of breath, deep into a tender. mek una reason am: all our
truths lead towards where?—the flags of their true core appearing, disappearing to announce their
fates. listen, no truth is true enough. some truths are lies pushed off their natural cliffs. here’s an
alternate gaze at the wall: an alternate gaze at the world. the wolf isn’t a symbol of violence—
Nome Emeka Patrick is a Nigerian poet. His works have been published or forthcoming in POETRY, AGNI, TriQuarterly, Waxwing, West Branch, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. A Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and Pushcart prize nominee. He emerged third place in the Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets, 2020. His manuscript We Need New Moses. Or New Luther King was a finalist for the 2019 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Say Hi on Twitter @nome__patrick