The
Scuffle
by
Andrew Hubbard
Who
would believe
A
coyote would slink
Onto
our front porch
On
a mild November night?
Our
husky flew through the door
In
a mixture of outrage and fury.
They
were matched in size.
My
dog had indignation going for him
(And
that’s not a small thing),
But
speed and ferocity
Were
all on the side of the coyote.
The
death bite was not far away
When
I got there with a handgun
And
shot the interloper twice through the chest.
He
laid down and died
Spraying
blood across the porch,
His
wicked teeth chomping,
His
eyes blazing violence
Until
they dulled and closed.
Our
boy only had light cuts
On
his lips and muzzle
And
one on his shoulder.
Easy
to dress, but he shivered
And
whimpered until my wife
Found
a codeine pill from when
They
pulled my wisdom teeth.
Even
then he cried in his sleep
All
night long. And in the morning
He
climbed into my lap
And
buried his face in my armpit
For
a long, long time.
About
Andrew Hubbard:
He was born and raised in a coastal Maine fishing village. He earned
degrees in English and Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and
Columbia University, respectively. For most of his career he has
worked as Director of Training for major financial institutions,
creating and delivering Sales, Management, and Technical training for
user groups of up to 4,000. He has had four prose books published,
and his fifth and sixth books, collections of poetry, were published
in 2014 and 2016 by Interactive Press. He is a casual student of
cooking and wine, a former martial arts instructor and competitive
weight lifter, a collector of edged weapons, and a licensed handgun
instructor. He lives in rural Indiana with his family, two Siberian
Huskies, and a demon cat.