She-Wolf

I am old, my time nearly done,
but I tell you, and you must pass it on.
The ways of man and wolf are not dissimilar,
both predatory, both hierarchical.
There, that's the philosophy dealt with,
now you can allow an old one her memory.

Ai-ee, ai-ee, how I howled;
how I bayed the moon
until the mountains rose bare and barren -
the footpaths of man yet to be thought of.

My agony echoed round the Seven Hills,
escaped into the rising mist.
I fled the lair, unable to bear
the sight of those two still bodies,
and all the time the milk kept coming,
mocking my motherhood.

A similar sort of day,
the Tiber's silver streamers
wound and unravelled,
endlessly alight.

Led by some secret lore, I found them -
two small human boys, harder
to distinguish than my cubs,
wailing from bushes by the river’s bank.
All the time the milk within me cried out for use;
I let it flow from me to them, knowing
it would re-shape our world, and theirs.