The distance between them
He came at dusk,
not one of them—
his gait a little wrong for it,
his ears listening for something
not there.
A dog,
though no one said it.
Though he did not say it himself.
The wolves did not greet him.
They did not turn.
They only widened their circle
just enough
to let him believe he had entered.
He learned their distances first.
Not touch, not warmth,
but the measured space
of bodies that trust only hunger.
At night they lifted their heads
and something passed through them,
a sound without doubt.
He opened his mouth too,
but what came out
was shaped by fences,
by names once called across a yard.
The wolves did not correct him.
They simply continued.
He followed them over snow
that remembered everything.
Their feet were quiet,
their purpose clean.
He left a pattern
that seemed like hesitation.
Once, he tried to play—
a sudden turn, a lowered front,
an invitation.
One of them looked at him
as if he had misplaced a season.
After that, he kept his body still.
He ate when they ate,
though not as they did.
There was always a moment
before his teeth closed
when something in him waited—
for permission,
for a voice,
for the small pause
of being told he was good.
It never came.
Winter deepened.
The pack moved as one thought
across the hills.
He moved in their wake.
One evening,
they disappeared over a ridge
without looking back.
He stood there longer than necessary,
his breath visible,
the sky already emptying of light.
