Why Coyote Laughs

by Taiko Haessler

Backwards green sweat

Beads up and spikes the air

Of the crisp desert.

A paw print fills with

Hollow sound, the

Call that once accompanied it.

Woven landscape of

Barbs and wire.

Cross-thatch gravel sand dirt mountain rock,

A tapestry of musk-marked territory

and parch-throat howls,

rough and grit-spit.

Insert now a baby's cheek

The rosy blush of sky.

Insert, too

Copper turquoise peeks in the ground.

Stag horn skeletons

Cactus scaffoldings.

This is what Coyote made.

A place that shifts

From hard to soft,

From no where to home

And back again.

He plays tricks on us

In his interstitial terrain.

Which is why he laughs so much.