28
Coyotes
We call it a howl,
but it’s a bark, a screech—
a vicious shriek,
the sound of murder.
It goes on for ten, maybe fifteen minutes,
each cry punctuated by tearing,
by feeding,
by devouring the evidence.
The night doesn’t breathe; it shudders.
A silence opens between each violent burst,
a silence that holds
bones cracking,
flesh slipping from teeth.
I press my ear to the glass,
eyes closed.
Half animal, half spirit,
I feel it echo beneath my skin.
No line separates me from them,
only this thin sheet of glass,
this fragile pane
that keeps me from remembering
how hunger sounds,
how survival tastes.
