My wife's family
is a pack of wolves.
One will be chosen,
and the others pile on,
tugging and tumbling
the lucky winner,
looking like they would tear
the chosen one
limb from limb.
At day's end
they huddle about
the battered cub,
licking its wounds
and nesting
warm and huddled.

My family was crocodilian,
cold-blooded and
waiting in preternatural
prehistoric patience
for a spot of blood
as the excuse
to pull the wounded one
beneath muddied waters
and devour their own.