Coyote Dreams
  By Dallas Huth

Awake
an hour before it is reasonable to get up
caught in an unfinished dream,
and a coyote yips,
another yip-yips a response,
the neighbor’s coonhound bays
a mournful cry
from behind, ironically, a coyote fence --
wired-together juniper trunks.

Outside the fence
creatures shrink into shadows
from your midnight-wild smell,
moonlight glinting
on your open-mouthed grin.

By day you lie beneath a piñon
or curl in a man-made culvert.
It’s all right to be a wild thing
in a paved world if you do not
challenge anyone’s expectations,
do not trot across the road at noon
looking over your shoulder
as a car bears down on you,
slows
and the driver sees into your eyes.