Domestic<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here the coyote lives in shadows between houses,
\nfeeds by running west to raid the trash behind the store
\nwhere they sell food that comes in cans
\nyesterday expired. Think of it
\nperching on the dumpster, a corrugated
\nsheet of metal welded to the straight, its haunch
\naccruing the imprint of the edge until it pounces,
\nskittering on the cans. Its attempts
\nto gnaw them open have broken all its teeth.<\/p>\n
Bald-flanked, rheumy-eyed, sniffing the wheels
\nof our big plastic trash carts but too pigeon-
\nchested to knock them down, scat full of eggshells
\nfrom the compost pile. \u201cI am like that, starved,
\nwith dreams of rutting in a culvert\u2019s narrow light\u2014\u201d
\nwe mumble our affinities as we vacate into sleep.
\nBecause we occupy the wrong animal\u2014don\u2019t you too feel it?
\nHaven\u2019t you stood in the driveway, utterly confused?
\nMaybe you were taking out the garbage, twisting your robe
\ninto a noose-knot at your throat, when you stopped
\nfighting the urge to howl, and howled\u2014
\nand did you find relief, my friend, however self-deceiving?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Domestic” appears in\u00a0\u00a0On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(Copper Canyon Press, 2012).<\/p>\n Lucia Perillo<\/a>\u00a0has published six books of poetry, including\u00a0Luck Is Luck<\/em>,<\/a> winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, a book of short stories, Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain,<\/a><\/em> and a memoir,\u00a0I\u2019ve Heard the Vultures Singing: Field Notes on Poetry, Illness, and Nature<\/em>.<\/a> Her most recent poetry collections are Inseminating the Elephant<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(Copper Canyon Press, 2009), a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, and her newly released collection, On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths<\/em> <\/a>(Copper Canyon Press, 2012). Perillo, a\u00a0MacArthur Fellow,\u00a0has taught at Syracuse University, Saint Martin\u2019s University, and Southern Illinois University. She lives in Olympia, Washington.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Domestic Here the coyote lives in shadows between houses, feeds by running west to raid the trash behind the store where they sell food that comes in cans yesterday expired. Think of it perching on the dumpster, a corrugated … Continue reading