National Poetry Month--Coyote Invades Your Dreams

(Note: I have no image for this post. I want to warn you not to search for "images coyote dreams" on the internet. It seems there's a popular trap used in hunting coyotes that's called "pipe dream." Your stomach will take hours to settle down from the images of bloody coyotes entrapped, dead in groups and hung on lines like fish on a stringer. Even a dreamcatcher made of coyote skin, head, and tail.)

This is the 5th in my sequence of Coyote poems for #NationalPoetryMonth, "Coyote Invades Your Dreams." The dream world is, of course, a natural for Coyote since he's a supernatural being who has taken on human form. He can come and go there even more easily than he can in the modern material world we all live in.

COYOTE INVADES YOUR DREAMS

You’re staying clear

of him. Just because

you noticed him once

or twice doesn’t mean you want

anything to do with him.

He’s beneath you—

and above you and inside you

in your dreams. His mouth

drinks you deep, and you come

up empty and gasping

for air and for him. That traitor,

your body, clings to him like a life

raft in this hurricane

you’re dreaming. His face

above yours loses its knowing

smile as he takes you. Again,

this night, you drown

in your own desire. Coyote

marks you as his.

You wake to the memory

of a growl.

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