John Miller
To the Apartment Complex Laundry Room

Irvine, California

Over the tops of the slightly
mildewed towels balanced
in the bulging plastic basket
I saw crossing the nightlit grass
and concrete smoothscape
a lean and scuffed coyote
on an errand of her own.

Marginal

Roadside alarm clock
went off at my feet—
I went wide without thinking

and was looking back
before I realized:
the small dust-colored coil
still buzzed
before its brush of sage,
pebbled gray like the dusk
and the dulled asphalt,
protecting its margin
of stones and trash.

Fifty yards on
I turned again
as a double-carriage gravel truck
throttled past and wondered

if the snake had struck at it
or had already started across.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #2: Winter 2008, Volume 1 Number 2