The coyote raids

on suburban streets

are not so subtle

anymore, the way

they snatch cats

off sleepy porches

in brazen acts, howling

shrill cries over the

still audience of night,

impossible vocalizations

of hunger and lust, hunters

unchallenged and bored,

dangling prey like Carmen

playing with Don Jose

white-knuckling his sword.

Here is another "estuarial" encounter--overhearing part of an imagined conversation between two people from wildly disparate worlds. And as far apart as two worlds can be, there is always a way for the symbols and stories in each world to inform and make sense of the other. I have been thinking of coyotes, having seen a pair of them up close at a wildlife refuge park in Colorado a few weeks back. And while I have never seen the opera Carmen, I read its story line to discover its tragic ending hinted at in the ending of the poem.

Photo credit: Skeeze on Pixabay.com: Creative Commons License.