The Pezote
Poetry
Pezote: the Costa Rican word for a coati, a type of raccoon who looks like a bespeckled professor instead of a thief
The pezote comes to collect the rotten egg
that I threw out this morning.
The egg: cracked, with maggots like wriggling yogurt.
Sorry little ones, I say to the maggots, not in the house.
The pezote: long face, little raccoon hands, curious eyes,
like a friend I might have fed.
Sorry hun, I say, I don't have any more.
They go crashing off into the underbrush,
along their route of possibilities.
I will never see them again.
I understand.
Freedom, fear and routines
are sacred to all things.
The bat sipping nectar from the guabo tree,
the black iguana sunning on the road,
the little girl who puts extra melon out, just in case.
Corrie Byrne is a poet and artist out of Pennsylvania. She graduated with an M.F.A from Iowa State University's Creative Writing and Environment program, which encouraged writing grounded in cross studies, diverse experiences, and a multifaceted view of the natural world. She likes to write about the nexus between humans and the environment.