Lisbeth White is a poet/dancer/performer and VONA alum. She works as an expressive arts therapist, supporting people in discovering the arts as healing. Her current poetry project centers around ancestry and the unique relationships women of color experience in connection to nature.

Howl

i wake up to coyotes yellowing the air
up and down the valley don’t
tell me they don’t know death
they don’t know human death
they don’t know black death when
it happens raped across the sky like
their own jagged howls they knew
before i knew before i scrolled through
my newsfeed to ingest my worth-
lessness once again they knew as the
dawn was breaking their yelps waking sounds
in my own throat how am i supposed
to walk out this door with this
skin and this body into those
open mouths?