Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing

Halloween can be daily for decades

Is it seem what you want to be? Or be what you want to seem? I never get it straight, though the words of my high school history teacher – discipline is the key to true creativity – seared my soul like a brand in a sheep’s flank

which, come to think of it, is exactly what I was back then. Not my own brand but a member of the herd.

Sheep baa a lot, especially at night. And while shepherds needing their rest may love quiet sheep, the sheepish sure as hell weren’t welcome in the popular pen at my school.

One fall, after a summer at drama camp, I returned — a singing, tap-dancing wolf – and kept up the performance by popular demand,

cannibalizing myself for applause until indigestion and exhaustion did me in.

Now I work with discipline to unlock the key to being creatively me. I’m a wolf still but a lone one eating a sheep’s diet of grass and leafy greens in a costume that’s become a baptismal gown, howling happily at the moon

whether it’s All Hallows Eve or the 364 days following, following, following. I am so finished with following.

©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2020

Well, the Muse played a Halloween trick on me. I started out to write a poem with a spooky feel and — BOO! — found myself going somewhere else. Fortunately I’ve got a few days yet to try again.

Thank you, Imad and Lucy The Eggcademic (she/her). The introvert in an extrovert costume so spoke to me.

Thank you, dearest readers.