COYOTE TRUTHS

Beauty

What is it like, I ask Coyote,

to wander in fields of lupine and poppies

that dot the dry fields,

to never walk a straight line

and yet brush against glory?

All day I starve and all night I roam,

Coyote says. Beauty is to wander

through an unwoven fence.

Fear

What is it like, Coyote,

to make people’s hearts beat with comfort

and wonder when they think you’re a dog,

and then race with tremor and fear

when they see your askant look back as the wolf?

They may fear, but it is who run.

Even from a distance, people appear

as if walking trees, ghosts

of a dead forest I evade.

Ecstasy

What is it like, Coyote,

to thrill when the dry scrape

of your fur ignites the dry grass,

the loose tumbleweed?

I pant continuously from fire,

Even my coat is a matchstick seeking water.

Hunger

What is it like, Coyote,

to be neither king predator nor pet,

with neither wolfish howl

nor canine whine?

I cannot beg, nor stalk. I snatch.

I yip, bark, howl

desiring the darkness.

Hunger always has my tongue.