the first time he tasted me.

I think we Catholics call that look transfiguration.

I don’t remember how long our strange communion lasted

before I fired on the bastard.

I flew through the smoke and flames

of his disintegration sure that his death

had left me changed and whole,

but today, when borders and oceans

can be crossed as easily as tossing a coin,

as I am on my way to San Xavier Mission,

suddenly, I hear an explosion,

while all around me, the desert steams

under an empty turquoise sky

and once again, I feel as if I am a fragment of myself.

The highway stretches forward and back without traffic.

I am alone, yet I know the wolf’s returned to haunt me

as I stop the car by the side of the road.

When I close my eyes,

I remember watching with horror and relief

as the kamikaze’s burning body

shot from the wreckage of the plane

and dropped into the ocean below.

I made it home in one piece,

at least on the outside.

Now I’m retired, in good health,

relocated to Tucson, Arizona, from Baltimore

and I’ve returned to the Church

after forty years of drifting between the New Age

and whatever “this” is.

I breathe deeply, open my eyes and start the car.

I drive the few miles to the Mission,

where I learn of a terrorist attack on New York City.

I ask Father Anthony if what I experienced earlier

was a premonition,

but he says, “My son, I don’t know.”

“A miracle then,” I ask.

“Only if you pass certain tests.

You didn’t save anyone, did you?

But if you saw the Virgin, or a saint . . .”

“Only a wolf,” I answer, “and a dead man.”

“Was the dead man a good man?”

“Maybe once upon a time.”

“So was Adam before the Fall,” he says.

“Perhaps it was Satan you saw, for this is his work.”

“Yes, Father,” I say, but I don’t believe that either.

The kamikaze was only a man

and the wolf, I must admit at last, is me.

“You aren’t the wolf,” he says mysteriously . . .

“I’m not?”

“Don’t you remember I absolved you of all that?”

“No, I’m getting old,” I answer.

“So are we all, but some of us moreso.

You know the wolf is not necessarily evil.

To some Indian people it is a protector spirit.”

“But what could the wolf protect me from?”

“Yourself?”

“I’m not convinced of that,” I say.

“Then come have coffee,” he says.

“We can chat about this latest manmade disaster

and wait for the Second Coming with bated breath.”

“You are so eloquent, Father,

but I’m not in the mood for conversation.”

“I’ll just pray, until I run out of words,

then I’ll howl.”

“Have you noticed the absence of birdsong?

It’s as if they know of the tragedy.