Swimming to Alcatraz

a shivering cage of ribs

Photo by Klemens Köpfle

Swimming to Alcatraz

My uncle paid his sons two dollars
for every coyote ear they brought home.
Clean cuts only. Tips and halves
thrown off the porch as rat food while
silvers and large ones were trophied
on the wood-paneled walls of the den.

For years, I searched the woods
for earless coyotes. Never saw one.

So when that lone paddler landed,
a shivering cage of ribs
on the wet rocks of Alcatraz,
I didn't wonder the motivation.
I thought about sundial mottos
—both sanguine and salty—
the packs of people 
who would rather live on Mars,
and that single coyote's future
on the island, stalking mice
in succulent gardens, marking
former prison walls, reclaiming 
the penitence we abandoned 
in our fogged-up cells.

As if swimming to the next rock over
could save him. As if it could save us.

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Thank you to RockPaperPoem for giving this poem a home in their latest Issue #14, and to the talented, insightful and generous writers of CWC led by the amazing Maya C. Popa for reading and responding to first versions.

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