You know Topanga Canyon at all in Los Angeles?
It's a canyon that comes down from the ridge
and goes all the way out to the ocean.
There's a little stream that follows part of it.
It's "Up to Topanga."
"Up to Topanga, the road cuts down to the muscle,
a sea-laid matrix of rock and shell the creek carves through.
Full moon, the sea at my back glazed dark blue.
There's a coyote in my headlights
with her inevitable smile.
Sweet dancer, she leaps the double line,
and I climb higher, following your car.
The man who tried to pick you up at dinner started a war in me.
I could have charged with furious tusks
through that underbrush of talk, but I kept it
where women like me keep things, quiet, until later when
you held me like girl.
Eyes smiling like coyote, you changed my jealousy
into passion, threw your hair over me like a coat of fur,
and into the forest of the moon I chased you."