In the Near Presence of Coyotes

Jean Hackett

September 15, 2024

Operatic harmonies

shudder though quaking brush,

pitch themselves high

in red cedar branches,

sending sound waves

of field mice and cottontails

scurrying from cacophony’s 

feral center.

Ancient fear 

buttresses my body,

sends my mind bounding 

with the deer 

I imagine the pack brought down

in a hunt now celebrated

with cloudbursts of song,

beautiful and terrifying

as any summer storm.

Jean Hackett lives and writes in San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country. Her most recent work has appeared in journals Ocotillo Review, Windward Review, and Voices de la Luna, anthologies Poured out from the Big Dipper, Purifying Wind, and Yellow Flag. Jean’s chapbook Masked/Unmuted was published in March 2022.