STEPHANIE STAAB

Il Lupo Mannaro

I wrote the first draft of this poem while on a solo hiking trip in the Vosges Mountains in France.  I was staying in an old farmhouse one night and the electricity kept going out. It made me very uneasy but it turned out to be a good setting to compose spooky stories.

Even if I was asleep, I could feel that you were awake at night
like a werewolf           pacing a mountain pass.

We were foreigners to each other.
The language you spoke to tell me something Important
was different than the language you spoke in bed, your mother tongue.

I have, of course, a recording of your voice
the same ten questions I asked everyone.
You couldn’t remember the story of how your parents met.

I let my mother listen to that interview once
and although she is a church lady
she said Wow
you two must have had great sex after that…

Signs came and went:
an ill-wish placed above our door by a jealous ex-lover
unquenchable thirsts
fangs.

Then, you set out for the woods
and I never saw you again.

Sometimes when I’m not expecting anyone and the doorbell rings
I still think it’s going to be you
darkening the doorway
no suitcase, no coat, just you
translated.

I wonder if sometimes you pause to take a sip of water
on the trail towards Jungfrau
if you kick the snow
and remember how you used to wake me up
from under the covers, hours after midnight
to kiss me or hold me.

The dream of the Alpinist.

Stephanie Staab is an American poet and translator living in the Black Forest. Her work has appeared in Crab Creek Review, Ligeia Magazine, Summerset Review and others. Her first chapbook, Earthling, is available now from Selcouth Station Press.

MORE FROM SUMMER 2022 (4:1)

PROSE

2021 Prose Chapbook Winner
Resistance, Sue Mell (an excerpt)
A Conversation with Sue Mell and Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, Prose Chapbook Winner and Finalist, Maria S. Picone, Managing Editor

Cataloging Ghosts, Carlos Contreras
Dalí, Renée Jessica Tan
How To Use Your Father’s Lawn Mower, Yasmin Nadiyah Phillip
Our Trespassing, Joel Worford
The Puddling, Mattea Heller

POETRY

Il Lupo Mannaro, Stephanie Staab
When it happens, you let it happen, Lynne Schmidt
Holiday Party 2017, Kim Ellingson
Ninety Days, Remi Recchia
The Universe, as in One Last Song for the Lonely Hearts, Michelle Hulan
Saudade Accuses Brown Girl, Yvanna Vien Tica
windmills over Zaandam, Gabriela Gonzales
Fold the Shadows, Cate McGowan
Intercession, Sasha Wade

ART

Fluidity, Patrick van Raalten
Yellow Purse, William C. Crawford
Blankness Was the Beauty, Carolyn Guinzio
Telephone, Moses Ojo
Skin Over Milk Cover Art, Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
Egress, Phil Temples