The quick and the dead

As winter recedes we find bones along the beach. The dog gnaws some of them, but not the coyote skull with its long canines and nasal passages packed with a delicate fretwork of turbinates.

She guards her bones jealously–

and then suddenly abandons them, bursting up the hill at high speed: small red rocket running into the light.

There goes the quick, you say, after chewing over the dead.

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