At first he was much possessed to howl at me
from his post inside the garden, as if invoking
me to enter, and knowing that I could not.
The birds sprinkled outwards from his direction,
his howl like an icy shiver through the yard.
No, I would not enter, though i saw him
and i sometimes watched him
walking in circles around the sick and dying
tomato plant. Once a deer got caught in the wire
mesh enclosures my father had made
to keep the snakes out of the blueberries,
and I could not see him behind this huge
panicked deer. I admit then, I almost ran out
unthinkingly, to free him. But my father appeared instead,
and he will not howl at my father. He runs and hides
in the compost pile when he sees my father.
My father, who freed the deer and rescued
countless toads from the imminent jaws of his sit-down
lawn mower. There's a wolf in the garden,
I told him one night, and he laughed as he stroked
the top of my head, like a small pet's.