The Couple / Walking Among Wolves by Darrell Petska

The Couple

We've lain together 50 years,

she to her side, I to mine.

I know her smells, her wrinkles, moles.

She shows no quarter as we battle

though her blade has little bite, and mine

avoids her armor's weakest chinks.

We live by accord, the rules long set.

We'll die governed by our bond,

yet her mind's a mystifying place

and she its wily temptress drawn

to charms and secrets locked in a box

with a key right there on her dresser.

Walking Among Wolves

All summer the droning lawn mowers

kept the white wolves at bay.

Soon autumn's telltale leaves

will register their footfalls, stealthy at first

then increasingly bold till their slick tongues

lick the air at my doors and windows,

sleek bodies waiting dare I go out.

In my attic, persistent angels sing paeans

to spring eternal just around the corner—

the same tiresome tune since I turned 60.

My stout walking stick leans by the door.

Rather it, braving white wolves' jaws

than succumb to angels' mawkish song.

Darrell Petska's poetry has appeared in After the Pause, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Chiron Review, Star 82 Review, Tule Review, Picaroon Poetry and elsewhere (see conservancies.wordpress.com). Darrell has tallied a third of a century as university editor, 40 years as a father (six years as a grandfather), and almost a half century as a husband. He lives outside Madison, Wisconsin.