Ace Boggess

The E is for Existential

Coyote crossed cliff's edge,
didn't drop before pause to diagnose
as though he must scent gravity
to be bound by it: the in-itself/for-itself
falling: later, coyote-shaped crater in painted mud.
Coyote would rise again to replicate his misadventures:
blown up, face smashed against
the blunt-pawed portrait of a tunnel.
How foolish one acts when starving,
helpless beside this blistering highway
somewhere between birth & Albuquerque

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, J Journal, Harvard Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.