That spring I'd leave the screen door open
         so regularly
the raccoon could visit our kitchen

because it was hungry, & because we understood,

we left bowls of cereal for it as if it were
         domesticated,
though it never let us pet it, never accepted

our affection. It was a welcome distraction

from the enraged words we'd hung on the walls.
         It wore its fur
stole with aplomb, & like a teenager

rarely raised its face to reveal its mask.

It was always afternoon; the raccoon may have been
         rabid or
dangerous, surely, but I maintain only

it was hungry, it was wanting, & that we understood.