THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, ALONE

by Linda Rodriguez

Coyote wails in the far field

beside his woods.

He runs yelping,

baying among the trees,

hot on your trail

across farms and highways,

down city streets to prowl

outside your triple-locked doors.

Coyote could splinter

that wood, shatter

your windows, plunge

into your life, drag you

to his den.

He will be civilized instead,

phone you in the morning, pretend

he has left a book behind.

Coyote moves back

into his woods, voice

fading.

He dials your number

now, growls into your sleepy ear.

Copyright © Linda Rodriguez. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda Rodriguez’s three novels published by St. Martin’s Press featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and EveryLast Secret—have received critical recognition and awards, such as Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Award, selections of Las Comadres National Latino Book Club, 2^nd Place in the International Latino Book Awards, finalist for the Premio Aztlán Award, 2014 ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Barnes & Noble mystery pick. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

For her books of poetry, Skin Hunger (Scapegoat Press) and Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press), Rodriguez received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence, the Midwest Voices and Visions Award, the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, the 2011 ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.

Rodriguez is 2015 chair of the AWP Indigenous/Aboriginal American Writer’s Caucus, a founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers and Kansas City Cherokee Community. 

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