The Lycanthrope Fun-Time Activity Book

he'd thought if he could peel back his tissue of skin

then he would understand the words that the wind

hissed into his pointing ears; he would know

the purpose of his thickening nails, the pointed ends

of his eyelashes — and the way that he could use

these malformations to find himself another boy

 

who was more like himself; an elongating boy

with butter-yellow flecks in his eyes, and skin

patched like a tabby. for many months he used

to climb to the roof clothed in scraps of wind

and tilt his body to the empty sky, but by the end

of the moon and his keening breath, he knows

 

that answers are always in the body. he knows,

still, that he must find this other mirror-boy

because his own body is no solution: the final end

of this quest is to peel back the unfamiliar skin

of this other boy, the one who heard the wind

and its missives, its curses. this boy can be used

 

like a fortune-teller's glass ball; can be used

instead of thrown knucklebones. he only knows

this much, but it is enough. in his ears the wind

hisses yessssss. it lifts him, flesh and bones. the boy

does not like the city flowing beneath him; his skin

shivers towards shadows, but he knows that the end

 

will justify these means. he thinks only of the end

to stop the lights from blurring to a vortex. he can use

the imagined scent, the dream-soft feel of new skin

to calm his breath. lifetimes later, a boy. he knows

beyond knowing anything else that this is the boy,

the one, the answer. his feet touch ground; the wind

 

hisses away. he never trusted the strength of the wind,

but he misses it now. never mind: here is his answer, his end.

he slinks, courts, kisses, pounces. when opened, the boy

reveals an infinity of colours, shapes, scents. he can use

these to divine entire worlds. he is giddy with knowing.

he peels back the final scrap of the other boy's skin.

 

yesssss says the wind, and he sees it's no use:

here is his end and there's nothing to know.

a brand new boy leaps from the skin.