ROAD KILL (POEM)

Road Kill

                                                                                                                             

If there is a perfect month,

October’s the one:

driving north on Highway 82 from Joseph

colors cascade from the asphalt westward -

orange and red undulation of leaves on the brush

in the roadside ditch,

cottonwoods just beyond, in a row of

sturdy whispering sentinels, leaves deciding

between green and gold.

Behind them a mown field of straw

         the color of straw.

Beyond that field, the violent thrust of mount Joseph’s

big shoulders, his coat of dark blue-green fir and spruce

punctuated, all the way to the snowy ridge,

by lemon-yellow spires

         of tamarack.

The autumn air coming through the pickup window

is a continuous kiss.

Just north of McLaran Lane, a skunk has been killed

         along the center line.

It is a beautiful skunk, a large one, still intact

except for the crushed head. Its two broad stripes

glisten white against the glistening obsidian

of the rest of the body.

I drive this road every day, so witness, over the following week,

the incremental crushing

         and reddening

         and flattening

         and, finally, the reduction to a stain on the highway

of what was lately a breathing, waddling

         life.

Is there a crime

named for this – this hurrying past a life

recently ended  – some juridical or

linguistic cousin of negligent homicide?

For the next five days, I anticipate

approaching the spot, holding my breath, then

inhale, as long and as deeply as I can, the cloud of

pungent skunk molecules, that I may carry forward, beyond

that skunk’s death, some part of its sweet life

with mine.

                                                             ©Dean Metcalf

                                                               November 2, 2007