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​ Image: “Princess Mononoke (1997)” from Studio Ghibli. ​


​WOLF PRINCESS, TO THE IRONWORKS
NOVA WANG

“Cut off a wolf’s head, and it still has the power to bite.”
—Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke (1997)
​

In these woods, my sins bare
 
                       into brand: I undaughter
 
       myself and turn to the wild, release
 
 my blood from human
 
             hands. They grip my arm, leave
 
 bruises thick as snakes. Rage blistering into open
 
                        palms. But I hold this honest
 
flesh even as it barrels to beast,
 
            whipping into gunmetal
 
pelt, a cry slicked silver by wind. Mother, I am knife-
 
         bound to the past. Victim
 
             to the future. I halve my reflection and cut
 
     the girl away, a gash the shape
 
of the moon. I confess, I thought our gods would never
 
                        die. I thought we were less metal
 
      than earth, I buried the shot
 
and waited for it to grow. Mother,
 
                            what do we do with all this iron.
 
Do boars know the predator
 
                    evolves, a new technology
 
 of hurt? In these woods, I watch you
 
                transform, alchemy, wring bullet
 
from blood. You balance on
 
                cliffsides and search for flashes
 
                         of fur, the musket eating 
 
        demons out of deer. You,
 
               cannibalizing land, more teeth
 
than stone, more bite than
 
                          bite. A jaw hooking twin
 
                  crescents around home.
 
But human, tell me how
 
            you fuel your machine—its smoke
 
and its meat. The sweat, rotting
 
           your joints. Tell me how you aim the gun
 
                                   in the lake, and shoot
 
              reflections of trees.

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Nova Wang is probably thinking about ghosts. Her writing appears in Gigantic Sequins, Fractured Lit, and Up the Staircase Quarterly, and she tweets @novawangwrites. You can find more of her work at novawang.weebly.com. 
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