Coyote

Under sagebrush: This mother, her pups,

scamper to the abandoned homestead shack

This denning season provides

ample holes in the smokehouse floor, river trout,

milk teeth caught in cactus paddles

The lamb death tally grows

Coyotes growing fatter, sharpening canine teeth

Bleached carcasses, picked clean—

the contented rowfs and rhuffs,

Fleas infesting their fur, growing bodies,

the journey to the coulee burrow

Mating ritual: Burlap dresses at the harvest dance,

saskatoon berry wine, silver

wedding bands, earnest proposal, a parcel of land

Grandma approves the August abandonments, the hip slamming

Your bridal trousseau: Filled to the brim with calico, coarse muslin, grammar workbook,

Gingham curtains, scraps of lace, white thread

Wolfers of the Great Plains sell trimmings for your husband’s winter coat

In the evening: Witches of the Prairie Gothic, or

feral teenagers, or child brides of the high Canadian prairies

practice chalkboard cursive, drink tea with their school marm

Your new home: Whitewashed aspen, neighbours a Hutterite colony,

curtains in the window, real glass,

black cookstove, flocked tablecloth, sack of sugar

This sweetness: Pregnant belly, the burrowing owl on the lawn

River valley: Glacier-carved, built-up sand deltas,

birding tours of the badlands

In the tallgrass: Gophers eat alfalfa weevils and Ord’s kangaroo rat

In the pastureland:

Hayfield grazers carve rough fescue,

grizzled pronghorn greets the mule deer

The night greeting: The Wow-oo-wow, the call and response

The frog bellies and dust bowl ballads

easing half-forgotten hellfire sermons

Through a star-freckled sky: The coyote calls to you too

Emily Bulicz-Arnelien