Gregory Luce
Not the Wolf
I will not be the wounded wolf
dragging itself into the clearing,
snarling to disguise the fear,
bleeding out into the dry grass.
The sounds of gunfire have faded
and only echo in now lowered ears,
while the scent of gunsmoke
lingers in still alert nostrils. No,
I will stand and fall in the place
where the killing shot was made
and I will not die alone.
Gregory Luce is the author of Signs of Small Grace (Pudding House Publications, 2010), Drinking Weather (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Memory and Desire (Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013), and Tile (Finishing Line Press, 2016). In addition to numerous journals, his poems have appeared in the anthologies Living in Storms (Eastern Washington University Press, 2008), Bigger Than They Appear (Accents Publishing, 2011), Unrequited: An Anthology of Love Poems about Inanimate Objects (CreateSpace, 2016) and Candlesticks and Daggers: An Anthology of Mixed-Genre Mysteries (CreateSpace, 2016). Recipient of the 2014 Larry Neal Award winner for adult poetry, awarded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Luce is retired from National Geographic, works as a creative writing instructor for Writopia Lab, and lives in Arlington, Virginia.
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