Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GEO-BESTIARY: 33, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GEO-BESTIARY: 33, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Coyote's bloody face makes me
Last Line: Tweezers because she plucked a flower with her toes.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Blood; Coyotes


Coyote's bloody face makes me
wonder what he ate, also reminds
me of when i sliced my hand
sharpening the scythe to cut weeds.
What the hell is this blood we mostly see
on TV, movies, the doctor's office, hospitals?
The first two remote and dishonest,
the second two less so but readily expunged,
but not the massive dark-red pool beneath
the shrimper's neck in 1970, his trachea
a still-pulsing calamari ring.
I don't care how many quarts of this red
juice I'm carrying around as it flows
through its pitch-dark creeks and rivers.
We must learn to rock our own cradles.
I don't want to get ahead or behind myself
fueled by this red gasoline, legs stretching
as if eager to pass over the edge of earth
or trotting backward into the inglorious past.
Tonight its pump is thumping as when an airplane's
engine stutters, thinking too much of those I loved
who died long ago, the girl sitting in the apple
tree, the red sun sinking beneath her feet,
how god plucked her off earth with his careless
tweezers because she plucked a flower with her toes.





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