(keeping out the coyotes)
by AnnaLeah Lacoss
The billboard said “create defensible space” and so I
vowed to never rent (a storage unit) but the other night
through a window I saw my friends lying on the road in
the rain convulsed with laughter the asphalt steaming the
pines nodding the turkeys (destined for death) concerned and
clucking and the turkey pen (a quote unquote defensible
space) keeping out the coyotes and the road keeping
the cars in their assigned (defensible) lanes like
parentheses keeping words unsullied and irrelevant and
I sat inside watching through the window
because I defend myself against the rain and roads and
friendship and I laugh at people but never with them and this (poem) is
a defensible space this (poem) is a window one side of which is dry one
side of which touches the same air that touches a rainbow.