If You’re Going to Look Like a Wolf They Have to Love You More Than They Fear You.

Published

May 20, 2022

If You’re Going to Look Like a Wolf They Have to Love You More Than They Fear You.

Written by Abigail Chabitnoy

Read by Pádraig Ó Tuama

The first deer had large teeth and no horns and
were not afraid.

The first deer did not have enough fear
for the men who needed them
to survive.

A woman decided to let the men eat
a grandmother decided her deer shall have horns
and be afraid
someone’s mother decided the men shall eat
and shall be feared.

A man thought wolves should be used
to cull the herd.

And we who had been catching water
dripping through stone
in the homes we dug
out of the earth
we licked our long teeth clean
and set to work.

“If You’re Going to Look Like a Wolf They Have to Love You More Than They Fear You.” by Abigail Chabitnoy from In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful, forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press, 2022. Used with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Contributors

Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. Most recently, she was the recipient of the Witter Bynner Funded Native Poet Residency at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, CO, and is a mentor for the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing. She is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak. Her upcoming collection, In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful, will be out in Fall 2022.