two coyotes in the yard

I've got a loneliness that I pray to

that has your green eyes and my soul. 

There are coyotes in the yard now

and when I called you

you spoke to them 

told them that I am very frightened

of their blackness, their eyes in the night. 

She is, you said, blind right now. 

She cannot see you. If you come into the moonlight

she will know your soul

and she will not be so afraid. 

And we stood at the back window

and watched them stand still, hundreds of feet,

merely, of separation a greyness in the night

and lift their heads, the pair, and howl one after the other

It is about speaking the same tongue, you said. 

And I told you that fleeting love

has too many words, and not enough

and that it outlines itself along the spine, see, and you can hear it in her howl

in the night

in the way that she calls back to him from across the broad lawn

afraid of an echo back that says, "I am

farther away than you thought, darling"

or worse, her own voice, empty,

only one pair of tracks. 

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