A Winter Night without the Moon
Gwenyth Wheat
Poetry
I didn’t say anything when we drove past it,
navigating crooked country roads and deep
winter darkness. Every curve surprised us
like a curtain slowly being drawn up from the road.
You flicked on the brights around a bend
and I turned my head just enough to see
the curled and broken body of a wolf
crystalized in frost. Her eyes were frozen open.
Still, in the black curtain and shadows, I couldn’t stop
seeing her face and fur held cold by icicles.
You kissed my hand, unknowing, and I wanted
to tell you everything—how the reflection’s
light glistened off her—a shooting star.
Gwenyth Wheat (she/her), nominee for Best New Poets 2024, is currently an MFA and MA candidate at McNeese State University. Her work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes in Poetry and has appeared in Great Lakes Review, The Poet’s Touchstone, Voicemail Poems, ZAUM, and elsewhere. She is currently a writing instructor and the Poetry Editor for The McNeese Review.