by Karen Pierce Gonzalez

Searching,
not finding
any trace of Coyote,
I rock myself
to sleep.

Moments later,
her tail
brushes my face.
Her low whine
playful
to my ears.
Her eager eye,
two moons illuminating 
the blue haze
of midnight.

She wants me
to catch her
in corners
where, sinews stretched,
she shoves against
my tightened grip.

Then scampers
back into darkness
through a window
I’ll never close.



Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in FERAL, Grey Thoughts, Pandemic Puzzle Poems, Postcard Poems and Prose, Riverbed Review, San Francisco Magazine, Tiny Thimble Magazine, Twist in Time, and other publications. Her chapbook Down River with Li Po (Finishing Line Press) will be released this Fall.

A former journalist and folklore columnist, she is also an assemblage artist and has exhibited at numerous galleries, including Santa Rosa Arts Center, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Truckenbrod Gallery, and Tiny Kiosk.

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