Them **** beasts
Hunt our cattle
Picking out the weak.
Go get your rifle, son.
Go fetch your boots.
Those *******
Look best skinned
And ******
Across the bed
Of this old truck.

I nod along with them.
I plod along with them to get the guns;
Isn't this necessary,
After all?

But inside my soul
I feel a dark night spreading
No, not sinister
But sweet.
The stars above like scattered drifts
Of snow spilled in the wind and crunching under
Loping feet.


And I am standing on a narrow ridge
And listening.
Hidden like some ephemeral thing,
Like sweetgrass burning in the wind;
Listening.

And I can feel them rising.
I can hear them crying,
A ghostly sobbing.
Falling on my knees
I call them.

To the draw they run!
Run!
Like so many mothers clutch their young
And all the warriors toss their guns
And still the cavalry descends,
Run!

Across the creek and trailing blood, she runs.
Singing her howling song, she runs.
Howling her death song, she runs.  

And in one last act of desperation falls.

I see them drag her carcass up the draw.

And in the truck, they’re laughing,
Humming, slapping knees, and spitting,
Like some celebratory release.  

In my head, a single phrase:
Them **** beasts.

little brown rabbit
in a field of coyotes-
hoppy survivor

Thinking about silence. Or
learning that my voice doesn’t always need
to fill a room. Somewhere there is always
snow falling. Or coyotes fishing.
It’s like a dream. If I go too long
without looking it might disappear.
And then where would I be.
I want to keep everyone happy and alive
and quiet and soft. It’s like I’m the only one
in the museum. Or I’m always listening
to conversations that weren’t meant for me.
A passive way to hurt. I want to take the afternoons
and twist them until the answers come out.
I want it to make sense to you
in the way it does to me. When I get home
I’ll study the birds that live out west.
I want to already know them when I get there.
I’ve had enough surprises – I want to be a kid again
with a hand full of salamanders. Or digging
in the warm, wet earth for pill-bugs.
Universal memories. We waited hours
for the rain to pass and when the lights came on
we gazed in awe at our reflections.

The Messes We Leave
                                                             The Cats You Dump on My Door

There’s a black plastic bag sleeping in a tree
And an orange cat who treads beneath it,
Flinching at
The jack-o-lantern grins
That the coyotes give
As they prowl about at night.

                                                           Even after we take him inside,
                                                                             He’s often so scared
                                                                     Wide-eyed and meowing
                                        Like these new owners will leave him too.

There’s a whole litter
Gone in scattered bones
Except for one who watches from rooftops and trees.

                                                                  He never meows, that one,
                                             Never accepts the invitation to come in.

There’s a pregnant kitten
Barely more than skin,
And a white calico
Who stares at us with the same cunning eyes
That outwitted the wolves other pale cats did not.

             Those are the handful we tucked away behind these walls,
                                                                        The rest are not so lucky.
                                                     A pair of siblings who lost the third
                                          Two toms who yowl to each other at night,
                       Those are just the handful who survive still out there.
          Together, they are that small number out of countless dozens
                              Who disappeared under car tires and canine teeth.

Into the woods I go
To fall in love
With the coyote’s souls
And let them
Eat me whole.

I was three , no bigger than a west Texas tumbleweed . . . just three .

My mother hung the wash out on the line
and wiped the sweat off her brow with her hand .
Half an hour later the clothes were frozen .
Blue Norther . . . you can see them coming
a hundred miles away .
Wichita Falls , Texas . . . on the Wichita river .

Moses sat on a mountaintop gazing at the promised land but it was out of his hands now .
Leaning on his staff , the one that ate the Pharoh's two serpents . . . sssssssilently a single tear falls to the ground .

No fence could hold me . . . I was over or under in seconds .
A terror at three , a potential runaway .
The police knew me by first name  . . . just three .
The plains of North Texas , jackrabbits , coyotes , rattlesnakes and all . . . were home .

Forty years of desert wilderness ,
till the last man , woman , and child of Egyptian connection had died ,
. . . . . . was such a sacrifice made . . . . . .
Moses was the last to fall .
On a mountaintop of no consequences .

      "Run Rabbit Run"

I'm going to tear my skin apart
And I'm going to spill my guts,
The world will know how vulnerable I am,
Then they'll break my bones,
Maybe they'll feed me to the coyotes
"What a shame!" "Such a loss!" They'll scream,
They'll yell about everything I could've conquered,
while they're pinning my flesh down,
for all my worse scars to go on display

Oh society, do me a favor, and **** the standards.