UNDER THE FULL WOLF MOON (OREGON 16)

by Tricia Knoll

In the third week of January a hunter in the Boise National Forest (Idaho) shot Oregon 16, a collared Oregon wolf.  Oregon Fish and Wildlife reported Oregon 16's death on January 24, but the shooting occurred the week before. Image source: Defenders of Wildlife

This January lamp of ice and silver

is stage light for wolf packs howling 

hungry at the treeline

below clouds scuttled in thawing winds,

under this full wolf moon

collared yearling Oregon 16, a gray,

left the Blue Mountains, crossed the wrong

north border, swam the Snake,

ran his wild miles

to Boise National Forest

where a hunter shot him --

second Oregon wolf

to die in Idaho

(media darling Oregon 7

made it to California -- 

without a shot fired)

with all the sadness trapped

in my breastbone for refugee

mothers inside fences of mud

holding babies dying

from typhus, for children

gunned down in elementary school 

and the hurts

of people shooting their brains out

in this gun-market world,

how is there room to mourn

Oregon 16

or how can 

there not be room

under his namesake moon

Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who has howled with wolves and been bitten in the neck by a captive coyote. She is working on a poetry chapbook about humans and wildlife in the urban environment.

5TH AND AVENUE E

by Stephen Cafagna

“Bus Stop” by Reginald Marsh. Image source: Encore Editions

i stod at the bus stop as a man late for work
looking down the street
wishing this bus would appare from thin air
I’d trade the life of every passing car for my bus

I stod at the bus stop alone
feeling as if i where to die at any moment
almost in shock that i wasnt

i stod as a man looking for his only ride
like when I was four
me and my father waited for the tractor
to take us around the apple ranch
i look down

staring at my hands
think if all i have done with these
ive build, destroyed, takin and give
but what did you do?
What was your triumph?

I stod at the bus stop as a boy
hearing the rpms
twine as when the transmission shifts
the complete stop
Kushhh! brakes awoke me to another dream…

And the only thing i had of my father’s was a glass from Venezuela
He died when i was 5, his glass went when i was 21
the corner where it broke still smells of old whiskey

I had my heart ripped out before
I dont like doing it to others, tho it happens…
Would you rather be the gun shot victum?


This poem by Stephen Cafagna is from his dissertation, finalized in Fayetteville. It functions in the interstices of language and urban life -- in dialect, representing a bridge of sorts, connecting the world of illiteracy, in all its unappreciated beauty, to the literary world.