12.30

I sit beside the fire, place

names dotting cabin walls.

Gunflint, Lutsen, Rainy,

Grand Marais, up north

in deed.

Through the windows

a large coyote peered

one New Year’s morn

eyeing us and the dog

as potential.

Tonka barked and backed

knowing a predator when

he met one, while we

looked back from inside

the zoo.

His territory more than ours

even though we paid and

built in it. nature knows who

was here

first.

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