It was two in the morning
when I woke from a dreaming sleep
to the sound of mountain lions
screaming in the night.
They were close, so much that I worried
they had caught the scent
of the turkey carcass in the garbage
even though we'd taken such care
to double wrap the bag.
They went on crying
from somewhere behind the house
and we lay there together listening
to the eerie sounds on Christmas night.
A coyote joined in then, barking,
and we figured there was a deer, or
some dead animal to be fought over
in the field next to the house,
the one owned by the horse ranch next door.
I rose out of bed to see if I could spot them,
but the night was too dark to see.
In the kitchen I found the cat had
gotten into the streudel and knocked it
to the floor, perhaps feeling
inadequate to his pre-historic ancestors
fighting outside the windows in the cold inky night.
After a minute the cries and barking faded
and I thought about who had made off victorious
with whatever had encouraged the fight
and who had been left cold and hungry
as the winds started to descend
into the valley.
I returned to bed in silence
but was bothered by the sound of the dog
who had snuck a piece of streudel off the floor
and was crunching away on his snack
from down at the foot of the bed.
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