One coyote howl
wakes us at 4
and we both,
the cat and I,
move around
blankets
and curtains
hoping to see
the creature
cross the road
ask each other why?
and for what purpose?
laugh at our inside joke
before falling back into dreams
neither one of us can translate —
coyotes and gunman,
snap traps and mice,
the violent world outside.
Poem ©2026 Jen Payne. NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you’ll love my book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now at my Etsy Shop.
I’m dreaming about the man in the field
its autumn backdrop oddly out of place
with the spring cacophony
that filters through my nighttime window;
he’s talking about collective trauma —
the seeping-in of our wild world
on jet streams and ethernets
on brainwaves and internets —
a scrolling litany of the everything
we were not built to absorb
and the everything against which
we are powerless;
a continental, monumental shift
beneath our feet
in a landslide brought me down
epic crescendo sort of way
I’m sure Stevie never imagined.
Poem ©2026 Jen Payne. NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you’ll love my book SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS, on sale now at my Etsy Shop.
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