For me
A coyote barks at the moon like it owes him money,
sharp and mean against the soft
cotton sheets of this desert night.
He doesn’t know there’s no moon tonight—
just a ghost of it,
hiding like me.
I’m wrapped up in this landscape,
and by wrapped, I mean tangled.
Mesquite thorns snag my jeans,
sand pours into my boots,
and somewhere, a cactus laughs in needles
The stars don’t help;
they’re too busy being eternal
to care about my flashlight battery.
So I follow the coyote’s nonsense song,
trusting his anger more than my map.
When he stops barking,
I stop too—
and there it is:
the smell of something green
in a world of dust.
Sharon Engel
Sharon (they/them) is sifting through the stars and soil to concoct a life of attention and expression. They are a singsonger, land worker, poet, and decaf coffee convert. They have many questions, many ideas, and an undying love for ice cream. Born and raised in central Pennsylvania, they now resides in Philadelphia. This is their first published writing piece.