Raccoon poetry

This young coon was on the next door neighbor's roof when John went to work at 5:20 am. I know this, because a crow was giving him a piece of his mind, and I looked out the bedroom window to see what the racket was about. When I went out to water the garden at 7:00, he was wandering around, and finally crawled up our plum tree. He stayed there long enough for me to snap a picture of his cheeky little face with my zoom lens. He hissed at me (I don't blame him) but no harm done. I went about my business, and he went about his.

They like our big hedge, so the yard is a playground for teenage raccoons--oh well, I like kids. Even lost kids. And the young raccoons seem a bit lost this time of year, cut lose from their families. The freedom to go out and make your own living isn't all its cranked up to be.

In the 70's, I liked to read was then called "feminist" or "women's lib" poetry. Now that sounds so quaint, but at the time it was important and new. I studied Marge Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich. But Anne Sexton was my favorite. This week on the Internet, I ran across a poem of hers I remember reading long ago. It's called Raccoon, and like all good poems, a bit mysterious:

Coon, why did you come to this dance with a mask on?
Why not the tin man and his rainbow girl?
Why not Racine, his hair marcelled down to his chest?
Why not come as a stomach digesting its worms?
Why you little fellow with your ears at attention
And your nose poking up like a microphone?
You whig emblem, you woman chaser,
Who do you dance over the wide lawn tonight
Clanging the garbage pail like great silver bells?

Anne Sexton