Coyote Sees Himself in Water
  Tracy M, Atsitty

Averts his gaze: nare & lore, a body;
of water braded into itself: bone
of herring, its blackness among the bone
white rush plunge against his bare body,

wind up (upstroke) cascades a woman's body.

coyote grows tethers over keel bone,
thrusting, as if to buoy gently--blown
over himself, prone to leave the body

he embraced. No, there is no beauty here!
Estuary of thick mutter and honk,
up close: water, herring, & wind blow bare,
gnat embedded in matted feathers. Here--


Tracy M. Atsitty is the author of Rain Scald
(University of New Mexico Press, 2018).  She
is a PhD student in the creative writing program
at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where 
she lives.