Coyote Forecast

The desert is the future.
Basins full of brown cheat grass,
burnt long before any fire.

Belly-up, in the dust, amongst
shades and foreshadows,
five-legged cows regurgitate old cud
while forgotten ghosts ruminate,
recalling all the blood.

A friendly green sign,
remembers it has one job,
and despite the desolation,
in a plain, neutral font
says “Colorado River”
and ignores the fact
that now it stands only
above a dried-up ditch.

Snake tongues fall silent
because even they
require water to hiss.
Parched pebbles clack
with the haggish laughter
of a dying old hippie witch.

Vultures no longer remember
how to circle because
the broken hoop proved
to be as unfixable as
the rusted tractors facing west,
stalled forever out
on their mad dash to progress.

Zombies with lumpy breasts
and hairless heads haunt ridgelines
broken by heavy stones
that will never again
be changed into loaves
no matter the devil or deity.

Neither the cows nor the ghosts,

the zombies nor the stones,
see the junipers retreating,
pulling their once evergreen
limbs away from the sun
to hide their berry babies,
or the pinyon pine mothers
fleeing north towards cooler climes
clutching their precious cones so close.

But, there’s nowhere to go.

An excavator leans
on the mound it made for itself
clinging to its yellow paint
flecking off in the wind,
grain by timekeeping grain.

In the machine’s empty bucket,
a lazy coyote lounges,
radioactive mud in his mangy fur,
dangling his paw in a glowing puddle.
His lips spark and flicker,
trailing twisting smoke.
All he can say is: “I told you so.”