The Last Wolf

TallMountain’s free-verse poem contains 28 lines broken into four stanzas. These stanzas vary in length—stanza one has eight lines; stanza two has 13 lines; stanza three has five lines; and stanza four has two lines. “The Last Wolf” explores themes about the destruction of both modern society and indigenous languages, as well as relaying a message the poet received from a spirit.

The first stanza establishes a contrast between the titular “last wolf” (Line 1) and the “ruined city” (Line 2): a post-apocalyptic San Francisco. Both are observed by the first-person speaker who brings together these two elements—the wild wolf and the specific urban location. The wolf seeks the speaker who visualizes the spaces through which he passes. The wolf is a force of movement, for he “hurried” (Line 1) towards the speaker. In contrast, the city is “standing” (Line 7) still in a stationary collection of broken things and “highrises [sic]” (Line 6) that have not fallen. The ways people are moved through space, such as “elevators” are “useless” (Line 8). This can be read as a) elevators as a synecdoche (a part of something representing a whole) for the entire city as useless, and/or b) alluding to the emptiness of the ruins and the lack of people to be moved.