Coyote for SJ Tucker

by Jessica Otto

the words travel across the page in a folk song your voice bleeds sunset following the line down a drop of ink on your tongue a body stumbles against the rumble strip a casualty of wandering and diesel fumes skinned haunches and shattered nose point towards the ragweed the beginning of the line dresses itself in a drop of ink a hemorrhage here is the horizon bleeding down generations of sunrises and sunsets light comes up light goes down when you lick the paper the road allocates the flesh of the coyote absorbs blood bone and skin stretched to a fine film between the rumble strip and the verge the road stretches out sniffs with a dead thing’s nose gulps rainwater through broken teeth