Scavenger

My dog sees it first, 

her sleek silhouette
stiff & still & 
bristled at the scent.

It’s late, the moon
a splinter
above the treeline
& it lends

no glimmer of light.

A dark & furry
form slouched supine
by the chicken coop,

pink-nosed & dirt-
caked fingers:
a slender possum
burrowing 

for the gray crawdads

that bubble their way
up with slick mud 
after rain. Its body

is unmoving, 
like it’s died
mid-meal. The dull light
that I shine

a funereal 

flare. I have always 
been so afraid
of the wild darkness.

In my verdant
childhood years
I listened to packs
of coyotes

nightly, screeching like

wounded women. This
predator, frozen
like a child hoping

to be carried
to bed, strikes 
me. We are all just
surviving;

caught three knuckles deep
in the mud, we’ve
learned to play dead.