Orlando is a silver-muzzled coyote
slumbering in brushy scrub
along a waterway that exists
only in reverie.

The fat orange moon suspended
at the edge of the world
is an over-ripe drupe
ready for plucking.

Orlando tends his injured paw,
licking and licking
while starvation spears
his bony ribcage.

In somnambulant visions
he transforms transient joggers
and cyclists
into well-fed cottontails.

He reminds himself
he was named for a god.

Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey eighteen years. Publications: Under a Lone Star (Village Books), Cattlemen & Cadillacs — anthology (Dallas Poets Community), So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay), Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure), and chapbooks: Black Crow in Flight (Main Street Rag) and Softly Beating Wings (Blackbead Books).