Trickster

Melinda Fay

 

Coyote

trots across my soul

dangling my illusions from her jaws

like a newborn lamb

 

she gnaws her way

through my dreams

nightwalking behind me

along the icy edges of oblivion

 

squatting

in the white ash of my memory

she uncorks

my bottles of fear

strewing the contents

in the dirt

like a streak of vomit across the night sky

 

Coyote

beckons me

look closer

 

i see

myself a prisoner

in 44 broken mirrors

each shard

mocks bits of me

makes a simulacrum of me

 

i stumble backwards and fall

to the other side of the night

and land impaled

on frozen pieces of coyote laughter

 

she taunts me

 

she's daring me

to dance

outside

my cage of silver bones

 

      from Tribes Issue 4