Forgetting the Forgotten

It's not enough to know;  you must tell
the story of unopened boxes stuffed

with unopened treasures.  The smell
of everything new but forgotten like

the secret lives of wolves on some old
mountain.  They have been living there

for years without being seen or known.
I am telling you now because I hear them

crying in foreign tongues-  how fiercely
they love and kill as if their jaws have

tricked them, as if loving and killing
were the same beautiful becoming,

as if their secret desire to be understood
will somehow save them.