City
Coyotes
by
Norbert Krapf
They
say coyotes slink
all
the way downtown
in
this Midwestern city
and
sleep curled up in doorways
of
shops. I wouldn’t mind seeing
one
as we have no dogs or cats,
inside
or out, but so far it’s been
only
rabbits and peregrine falcons,
one
of which our cigarette-inhaling
son
saw take out a plump pigeon,
feathers
settling on pink roses.
Maybe
at night when no moon
shines
they trot past our door,
not
satisfied with tiny chipmunks,
and
take their sly unending hunt
elsewhere
up and down dim streets
sniffing
for larger, more appetizing
live
meat padding in the dark.
Norbert
Krapf,
former Indiana poet laureate, has recently published his 12th poetry
collection, The Return of
Sunshine,
about his Colombian-German-American grandson. He is completing a
collection of poems for children and a prose memoir about his writing
life, Homecomings.