SARA CLANCY // Two Poems

What I Did for the Coyote Hunting My Dog

I built him a lean-to 
against the sun, made of caliche clay, 
cactus ribs and remorse.

I walled in my kitchen garden
with wormwood, rue and coach whip skin 
to keep out fellowship and the spiny
irony of omens that bloom at night.

I put an iron bell in the wind 
over a pyramid of creosote, lit up 
with malice and hanging like God's own anvil
in my naked allotment of sky.


Dear Varmint,

Forgive the informality, we are ignorant
of whom we address. If you are not the unfortunate

splay of fur in the gravel or the one scavenging
our new sweet corn, we can only surmise

you are warm in your den of memorabilia,
your cubs nurtured in folds of yellow

organdy, baby clothes and letters. We trust
our attic sanctuary is preferred to last June's

hollow stump and we ask only that you haunt us
in daylight. Spare your hosts unusual vectors

of pathogenic consequence and for all our sakes,
do not shred what's left of the silver sheath

of Romex in our horsehair plaster walls.

---

Sara Clancy graduated from the Writer’s Program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals such as Verse Wisconsin, The Smoking Poet, The Madison Review, Untitled Country, Avatar Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Owen Wister Review, and Houseboat, where she was a featured poet. She is a transplant from Philadelphia to the Desert Southwest where she lives with her husband, their dog and a 22 year old goldfish named Darryl.