The Tooth No longer simple, if ever was. The coyote lies at the edge Of the lake. I meant this, I did not; the death I paid for Has come: a bad job of it, her jaw blown off, her underside Gone, legs strung up with bailing twine, the body dragged And quickly buried under leaves. When you pray, when you Try to pray, words do not correspond in this crowded light, They become slippery, wrong, not what I meant at all. My knees sink in the muck, gut-blood and fur Thicker than imagined, and out of the red wilderness Of bone and tongue, one lone tooth more clean and white Than God ever could be. No longer the heart To take what I came for: the tooth so oddly rising Out of a midst where the living cling For whatever they can build of her until there is no trace. -- Sophie Cabot Black