I haven’t seen a raccoon
in my neighborhood
at all this year
which is most certainly a good thing.

I spied
with terrified eyes
sometime last autumn
a couple of crazy critters
in my back alley
looking at me
as I looked at them.
They could not have given
a smaller shit
if they had just finished
dining on my carcass
and not yet fully digested
even a little bit of me.

I haven’t seen their stripes since
though I had heard
years before
of a neighborhood raccoon
that had split a neighbor’s cat
stem to stern
then left it
to drown in its own blood.

So the raccoons are gone
I hope.
I believe.
I pray.

I pray also
that maybe they were brutally murdered
(a boy can dream
can’t he?).