Editor’s note: In her Ad Astra Poetry Project, Denise Low highlights historic and contemporary poets who resided in Kansas for a substantial part of their lives. Eventually, she will collect the biweekly broadsides into a book, to be published by the Center for Kansas Studies at Washburn University, in cooperation with Thomas Fox Averill.

Linda Rodriguez was born in Fowler, graduated from Manhattan High School and attended Kansas State University before dropping out to hitchhike to Haight Ashbury in the ’60s. Since 1970, she has lived in Kansas City, where she was director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Women’s Center. Rodriguez is vice president of the Latino Writers Collective, and she has published in numerous journals and anthologies, including “Primera Página: Poetry from the Latino Heartland.” Her new collection, “Heart’s Migration,” won the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award. She is of Western Cherokee descent.

In “Coyote Invades Your Dreams,” Rodriguez reminds us of how close Kansans are to animal life. Coyotes stalk fringes of cities and pasturelands. The adaptation of these wily beasts is instructive — we humans also learn environments quickly and well. We share animal qualities of stalking, shifting identities and forming attachments. A coyote lover is a trickster who both attracts and frightens, like change. The coyote encounter leaves its mark.

‘Coyote Invades Your Dreams’

You’re staying clear

of him. Just because

you noticed him once

or twice doesn’t mean you want

anything to do with him.

He’s beneath you–

and above you and inside you

in your dreams. His mouth

drinks you deep, and you come

up empty and gasping

for air and for him. That traitor,

your body, clings to him like a life

raft in this hurricane

you’re dreaming. His face

above yours loses its knowing

smile as he takes you. Again,

this night, you drown

in your own desire. Coyote

marks you as his.

You wake to the memory

of a growl.

Education: This poet has a B.A in English-creative writing/journalism (University of Missouri-Kansas City) and an M.A. in English (University of Missouri-Kansas City).

Career: Former director of the UMKC Women’s Center; personal achievement coach; editor and freelance writer. Poetry books are “Skin Hunger” (Potpourri Publications, 1995, one of Writer’s Digest’s four top poetry chapbooks of the year) and “Heart’s Migration” (Tia Chucha Press, 2009 Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award).