& I will be every moving thing that lives, which shall be meat for you

---

Sometimes a coyote is just a coyote

he says. Wiling around in the dark

as they are wont to do. The rabbit knows

what matters really is that the coyote is

just a coyote, dog-hungry & keen

on the night’s fleshly offerings. The rabbit

knows what matters is run.

Still, I call out to my love under the sky

so full while his death feels like more

than just a death. A processional profusion

of animal. How quiet the night between

the hills. Until I shout my love’s name, ask

for a sign. How suddenly the whole night

its hills & moon & grasses cover

me with howls. How my love takes

the coyote tongue, its wind & lung, to answer

me, to say, I’m here, always, wiling in the dark.

I know. What matters. Sometimes flesh is just

flesh & nothing is ever the same, anyway.

& I expect my love will be dog-hungry & keen

on ravishing the feast of an effort, a choral

moonlit mess. & I, in the skin

of the rabbit, know

this. & to my love,

I run.