At Dusk, Wolves

At dusk, I hear the faint sounds

of wolves as they scan the forest

for stragglers, distracted victims, weakness.

Opportunistic, they search for prey on instinct,

silently sniffing the air for traces

of blood and sweat and fear;

ears operating on a complex wavelength.

Humans strain to hear above the din

of our noisy existence,

while they effortlessly hunt, pack, pursue.

Ready to catch the one who stumbles,

the one who falls behind.

I sense them getting closer, steps quickening,

alerted now to my presence in the wild.

The hair on my neck and arms

electrified with terror

at the thought of capture,

blood pumping furiously through tense veins.

I consider my place,alone and

uninvited in another's territory,

marked repeatedly with urine

and trembling carcasses.

Thoughtlessly, I gambled with laws of

nature and probability, counting

on emerging safely as an absolute.

And then, it is in front of me,

the clearing, the Way Out!

Relief surges through me like a drug.

Escape to civilization tastes like freedom,

a drop of water in the desert,

like waking from a nightmare

to discover it was only a dream.