A coyote with an injured leg is abandoned by his pack and makes his home on my university campus. Students keep our distance; heed warnings not to feed him. It would make no difference at all to his loneliness – but no one in the world is as revered, as beloved.

Amrita V. Nair is a writer and researcher. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Okay Donkey, Yuzu Press, and elsewhere, and was included in the Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems. Follow her on Twitter at @amritanairv.