Biospeleology

 We leave the Ruminal fig, its sticky fruitclotting the fur of the she-wolf lowingafter us. Sickly sweet what she licksfrom her paws. Flies, bees simmer above.Beyond the dank, twilit zone of sleepingbats: the dark we don’t seek to civilize,the albino spiders who’ve no need of sight.What lovelorn story will we tellourselves about the paw prints followingthe foot prints: pet or predator?Mother or fur coat to stroke in her absence? ____J.K. DANIELS is the author of Wedding Pulls (Hub City Press, 2016), which was selected by C.D. Wright for the New Southern Voices Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in The New Orleans Review, Queer South, Calyx, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and others.