Innocence Poem by Lisa Allen Ortiz

All night I dreamed of coyotes.
The cat went missing before bed
and I slept fretful for her delicate bones
listening for a crunch, a rustle, a cracking.

In one dream, a coyote entered the house
and I yelled to the children to hide. I stood
by the dog and held a kitchen knife
to the coyote's wet jaws.

In another dream, the coyotes
whispered and planned and circled
the house. I woke and thought of rabbits,
their ink eyes. I have daughters and I cannot

forgive myself for this.
I walked the house in moonlight
and saw swept with coldness all
that will be lost:

pencils, open books,
a glass left out, its ghost of milk.
Outside in the damp meadow,
clicks, whistles, foot-falls.

The door of the forest
creaks on its blind hinge.
Can I save this place?
My daughters wake-

taller than I remember,
all bones, keen hunger, eyes. Warm
with sleep, they reach behind their heads
to tie their hair to tails.