National Poetry Month--Appointment with Coyote

I must confess I’ve always had a fascination with the bad boy in literature, TV, and film.  I know it’s not healthy, but judging by the sheer number of bad boys in fairy tales, literature, movies, and television, it must be pretty common.

I have been fortunate enough to have been married to two of the nicest men in the world, my late first husband and my current husband, but before and between them, I had the most lamentable taste in men. I blame it on all the reading I did as a child. The bad boys were always the most interesting guys. 

All this may explain why, over the years, I've written such a number of Coyote poems, and why they seem to form a narrative arc.

APPOINTMENT WITH COYOTE

Coyote showers, shaves, slathers musk

when he knows he will see her. On Wednesdays,

ten is a sacred hour.

He always wears something new

when she comes for her appointment

to see if she will notice.

Nights fill with Wednesday

morning dreams,

but the empty days go on—

all but hers, when he becomes

for fifty minutes

strange, compelling

beast, sexual being.

Coyote sees it in her eyes, the way she draws

unconsciously near, the sudden aware

jerk backwards

that must have been the apple’s

consequence in Eden.

The things he could make her feel, she fears.

This morning her old car refuses

to start. Coyote drives her home,

thighs one hand apart. Filling the air

with her fragrance, she pretends

nothing joins them. Coyote fears

losing control in the sleet

and sliding into some fiery collision

before he reaches her door,

then races skidding away in the ice.

Tomorrow, her husband will buy her a battery.

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)