eating in the presence of coyotes

 

We roared in,
trailing our scent of chemicals,
snarled at our competitors,
stalked and overtook a table,
swept away plastic potato chip bags,
took turns peeing into the cesspool
with its hint of perfume,
ripped open a tin of fish
pickled by some poor slob
who wasn’t on vacation like us,
hunched over it and glared out,
daring someone to disturb us.

There were four;
they outnumbered us but kept back,
slinking behind a perimeter of pines,
looking out as though through a cage.

Glutted and on the road
I pictured a snout sniffing
and pushing that herring tin
along the developed emptiness
that led to the john,
and also the eyes of the scavenger,
always on the lookout,
just like mine.

---

mark trechock writes from Dickinson, North Dakota, where he worked for many years as a rural community organizer. His poems have appeared recently in such magazines as Evening Street Review, Drunk Monkeys and High Desert Journal.