Mirror Theory

Lucia LoTempio
How-to
with a wolf head
in it: magic

says rub
tooth to your gum, sleep
with cheek
matted to your

sweat—first you
must kill it.
Post

a letter of carved
wood that sings
like howl.

What happens after
the cast—where
to dispose
of used up

fur coil
and red.

Kept saying
new when I had

looked for nothing.
There’s a whole

word for wind
in France,
northeast and dry;

I have not been
given one
to say how

canvas cuts
a tree’s bottom
and top
with grey poplars.

My stretch of cells
still repeating.

The nuns
made my body
a holy cathedral,
impenetrable—yet

a temple is a widest
entrance; place
of herded into.

Still have
a wolf and it’s still
breathing. From its mouth
crawls another.

Then from that,
it happens again; throat
combed by teeth.

It became
we and I was

a portrait
with many hearts in it.