-a moment at the Strand Movie Theater on Pleasant Street-

when the wolf man got hairy under the full moon

he sat quite still so we wouldn't miss the growing.

the grey-brown hair broke-through in slips of undefined time

morphing to length in seconds which could have been hours
or seven days and seven nights, over his face and hands,

but his tortured feet looked frightening as the hair grew long

and the bones appeared to snap into the agonizing anatomy of the wolf.

In the grip of fear in the back row of the Strand's balcony,

Cylindrica Mello grabbed my skinny arm, digging her fingertips into it.

then, when the wolf man jogged into the fog, always the fog, always

the eerie mist of a swampy place, she really dug-in.

she buried her face just under my shoulder turning her head into

my armpit and her nose pressed inward as her other hand

grasped the material of my shirt just above the belt-line in a tight fist.

this happened when the wolf man started his walk on those hairy, long-toed feet

and I noticed that Cylindrica kept one eye open to the screen afraid to look

but longing to know, as the wolf man hobbled into the foggy damp outside

the tall leaded-glass windows of the stone-cold mansion.

Cylindrica Mello was having all of it.

the hem of her dress had traveled a good 5 inches above her knees

and her knees were pressing into my heavy corduroy pants when

she suddenly sat-up, looked into my face and jolted from the balcony.

naturally, when the physiology calmed down I went looking for her
and we walked home together, leaving the birds and the bees to themselves.
––It was later I learned that the pretty young woman who bravely slogged into the fog

of the moor searching for the pre-wolf man, that neatly suited, sleepy-looking young

gentleman of acquired sophistication, got quite the surprise herself that night, too.

Quequechan / early 50s