I remember asking you was it a coyote but I knew he would have taken you I came closer you couldn't run I nudged you there was no blood your ears laid back and I stroked that soft inner space between my fingers.
I never thought the wildness in you would ever let me hold you but there we sat a while you in my lap I felt the length of you no breaks and no leaping away in pain.
It was early spring I remember a racing under your ribs your chest rising in quick half breaths the shed door swinging in the March wind. Did you get in there find something as I pondered the rage of every argument unresolved stuff to kill still in the shed?
Your eyes opened as if to see if I was still there and mine closed as if shutting out the world could make it go away or help you stay in it.
Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes is a retired college professor emerita from the University of Wisconsin system and a former librarian who practiced in a log cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin. Poetry has been published in three countries and languages, with recent publications in Ekphrastic Review, Rosebud, Moss Piglet, Wallop Zine, Jimson Weed, among others. Her most recent chapbook, When Wilding Returns, is forthcoming from Cyberwit Press.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)
