Coyote crossing

The coyote slowly crossed the road, stopped at the mailbox, took a sniff, so domestic, for a moment I thought he was a dog. But there was something so scruffy about him, his fur unkempt. He looked like he was sleeping rough. I stop the car to take a photo, but my camera battery was dead. The coyote stopped to eye me warily, and we stood there for the longest time, eye to eye, each measuring the cut of the other. And then he slipped off between the vineyards ghostlike, searching for breakfast among the rows of grapes dried on the vine.

12/6/20