I am the werewolf, I devour myself. At dawn I cut fresno trees where the moon settled. At noon I burn pastures where the deer run swift. At dusk I go to the beach to butcher turtles. I climb mountains to hunt the eagle. What God created in six days, I destroy in one. I am the werewolf, I devour myself.
My Aunt Hermione The story of my aunt Hermione has always bothered me, lost, according to my father, for a year in Yugoslavia. Missing, according to my uncle, on the ship bringing her from Smyrna by the Sea of No One. Survivors confuse the paths of the dead with their own, they no longer know what dream, what memory is from whom. Was she lost in a time without calendars, a sea without waves and a ship without walls? Didn’t she know that while she was alive, however far she went into the Nameless Country, she’d always return to the refugee ship which is the present, which is this planet? They found her one day, this is for sure, but if she found herself, nobody’s telling: one day she disappeared without leaving any other anecdotes.
Bio: Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. His collections of Tanka, For the Men to Come (2014), and From Life to Life (2014) were released by Amazon. He’s a two time Pushcart nominee and a four time Best of the Web nominee. His poems have been publish in over four hundred journals and anthologies.