The world
is a squirrel
in the middle of
a country road
and– phone out,
music loud–
I can’t tell
if I ran it over.
(originally published in Ink Pantry, Summer 2023)
roadkill
Roadkill
eye contact
with a dead deer
on the side of the highway
his eyes were open
facing oncoming traffic
neither happy nor sad
just dead
face intact
a mangled cute
because I don’t find deer
particularly cute
nor useful when alive
(here I am
another man
valuing appearance
as commodity)
but I don’t want
to kill them
I am on my way
to see my underpaid
overworked partner
on memorial day
passing cop
after waiting
cop
and I swear
there are
more carcasses
than usual
in the tall grass
(originally published in In Parentheses, Spring 2020)
A Raccoon Knocked Over a Garbage Bin
The daddy longlegs cantilevers from Styrofoam
to sidewalk. Beetles, red-handed, scurry from a brown banana peel,
and as my gloved hands rake the dregs of recent days to neatly seal
in a new black bag, I think of how much we lose
in a week, or in the span of a second, some wayward glance,
a hush in a waning tide … no moon, no sun, no, merely
the space between … wrinkles slink into our faces.
I would give you wings, but you have risen,
already, high into infertile sky. And in the morning,
without sunrise, I will swear
the wings were broken, were never there, or were crushed,
in some tiny state of insignificance.
(originally published in Syzygy Poetry Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2)