Garbage Truck

The early morning sun is starting to burn
a hole in the clouds over Porter Ridge.
Down the block a garbage truck
comes around the corner with a growling.

It spots me standing back on the porch.
Like a coyote it stops at each garbage can,
tips it over and dumps the rubbish
that a family shed like a cat sheds hair.

Coyote warily draws near the carport,
he fixes on a clanking dumster
with a broken wheel, coyote gulps
and swallows with a snarl.

This is not a reticent coyote
slipping through tules at a marsh's edge
on a frosted November morning,
this howling coyote clatters and bangs

around the corner to obsess
on the next street's shedding.