Coyote, with Mange by Mark Wunderlich

Coyote, with Mange

 

Oh, Unreadable One, why   

have you done this to your dumb creature?   

Why have you chosen to punish the coyote   

 

rummaging for chicken bones in the dung heap,   

shucked the fur from his tail   

and fashioned it into a scabby cane?   

 

Why have you denuded his face,   

tufted it, so that when he turns he looks   

like a slow child unhinging his face in a smile?   

 

The coyote shambles, crow-hops, keeps his head low,   

and without fur, his now visible pizzle   

is a sad red protuberance,   

 

his hind legs the backward image   

of a bandy-legged grandfather, stripped.   

Why have you unhoused this wretch   

 

from his one aesthetic virtue,   

taken from him that which kept him   

from burning in the sun like a man?   

 

Why have you pushed him from his world into mine,   

stopped him there and turned his ear   

toward my warning shout?