Steel jaws are tense to clamp shut.
The man is leaving,
the small coyote comes sniffing
soft, soft
feathers from the sky go out quiet like wings.
Such fragile things we all are,
such bones,
such silk nests of hair, fine nerves
touching the smooth beads of vertebrae
that string us together.
Coyote with invisible breath
calling for snow and wind.
Now the evergreen is turning slowly
from your eyes. Something, a bird,
goes up in the air.
Coyote, you weren’t much,
nothing more than a shadow with eyes,
a wisp of air waiting to leave
through the thin bones.
All of us have stolen something
in the night
the long night ending in sweat,
the blackest sweat
of morning on the ground.