Mark Williams – Coyote and the Full Moon
It was Coyote
I hadn’t seen him in awhile
Wearing his buckskins
Smokin’ a pipe
“Where’s your cee-gar?” I asked
“Lost it hitchikin’ near Bakersfield,” he said
“I expect I’ll find another”
“How you been?”
we asked each other
at the exact same time
“Well that’s
the $64 question” I said
It was nighttime
Getting cooler
and I’d been drawn out of the house
by the bonfire
Coyote lit
in the middle
of my cul-de-sac
“The neighbors
will complain,” I said
“I sure hope so,” Coyote said
“and by the way,
sixty-four bucks
is too damn cheap”
“You should come here
and dance
It’s a full moon”
“I know,” I said.
“I just had an owl fly over my head.”
“You been listenin’
to your owls?” he asked, tearing down a picket fence
to feed the growing flames.
“Not as much
as I oughtta,” I confessed
“You know,” he said, watching the flames grow
“People think
I stole the secret of fire
so they could cook
food
“That ain’t it
at all
I mean, nothing against a bowl
of venison stew
in fact
everything
for it
“But really,
I stole fire
so people could stay warm
at night
“So they could stay
loose
and limber
“the same damn
reasons
they should curl up
“With each other.
and I learned that,”
he added, ripping at some dried rose bushes
and putting them in
“Out on Highway 99
around the time
I lost my stogie”
“It’s a cold world, boy
Don’t stay in it
too long alone”
About that time
we heard the sirens
“Maybe we’d better go in,” I said
“What? And miss the dance?”
Mark Williams
November-December 2009 Earth First!
