National Poetry Month--Coyote in Black Leather

The 7th poem in my sequence of Coyote poems for #NationalPoetryMonth that I'm posting to this blog as a kind of serialized chapbook is "Coyote in Black Leather." I wrote this poem immediately after writing the poem, "Outside Your House at Midnight, Coyote" (posted here yesterday). This is one of the most popular and reprinted poems I've ever written.

After writing this poem, I began to envision a whole sequence of poems about the bad boy archetype as Coyote in human form. Coyote is the trickster, the troublemaker, and yet often an ally of humans, even as he tries to seduce and exploit them. That seemed a good match for the anti-hero that the bad boy figure in literature, film, and television so often turns out to be.

COYOTE IN BLACK LEATHER

Coyote slides on black leather

over the T-shirt

that reins in biceps, shoulders, chest.

Dark jeans and biker boots cover the rest

of his long, lithe body as he invades

your everyday, suburban life

like a growl.

You avert your eyes, pretend

you don’t watch

his tight, hard body, his mocking face.

You know he’s bad, doesn’t belong.

Besides, seeing him makes your face too

red, your breath too

short, your bones too

soft, your clothes too

tight. You pretend

not to peek, don’t want him to catch you looking

at the hungry way he stares at you.

Coyote has no class.

Coyote is your secret.

You tell him it’s more exciting that way.

He lifts the eyebrow bisected by a scar and stares

you into silence. He knows

you’re ashamed. He thinks

you’re ashamed of him.

Coyote takes you

to dangerous places.

In dark, dirty bars, he threatens drunks

and fights to protect you.

Coyote takes you

where no one else can.

Coyote takes you

where you can’t admit you want to go.

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