Coyote
It's mid-afternoon, and a coyote, tan
as the dust of fallen aspen leaves,
is crossing the west pasture, eyeing me
as he runs, head curled back
over the right shoulder, trusting
the way is clear and straight ahead.
The dry brome strokes his sides,
his underbelly, his upcurved muzzle:
I watch it bend, wave
and wake,
as his slender body parts the shafts.
Later this same coyote (we will know him
by his ragged ear) will cross the wrong field,
unwary, strike a fresh diagonal across
a neighbor's backlot filled with wildflowers,
with sage and mullein, spiderwort.
The first shot downs him, tearing
through the left flank, soft ivory undercoat,
shatters the pelvis so he cannot stand.
Half-submerged amid the flowers,
he digs front claws into the warm clay, draws
his body forward toward the rising moon.
The second shot fills the silence
of late September, expanding in the quiet
like thunder unanticipated; the second shot
shatters his skull, ruins the butter-colored fur,
the deep and glossy pupils behind grey lids
that will not rise again. The second shot
hangs in the air, brooding over the sharp
cry it cannot wholly silence.
Minneapolis: Mid-List Press, 1996