little brown rabbit
in a field of coyotes-
hoppy survivor

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.