COYOTE FOR A DAY
By
As in last year's Skunk for a Day, Caras puts ""you"" in the place of a wild animal--who knows things ""not in the same way a man can know something--not with thoughts--but in a deeper way, down deep inside."" What you know soon after this starts is that the distant howl that answers yours belongs to a female. You slip down your respective hills to the valley, where you bite each other gently on the muzzle. . . and are thereby pronounced coyote and mate, to hunt together side by side ""until your cubs are born."" (As this ends--Caras looks several days ahead--you are preparing a nest for the babies that your ""coyote senses, deep down inside,"" tell you are on the way.) This time, casting ""you"" in the coyote's role puts Caras in the position of having to evade the real business of mating, which is central to the stretch of life he covers. Whether he compensates for this by involving readers more directly in the coyote's hearkening to a rattlesnake's buzz or a man's gun is questionable.