519: Wow...
It's been so long and yet... I'm amazed at how good this actually is; nothing's better than distance to give you perspective, and if nothing else, at least I'm pleasing meself...
Here's a poem I wrote last semester (part of the "Animal Studies" section of the book) that I never posted:
Get Away
For Ryan and Lindsay Denlinger
We came across that dead opposum
on one of those many mandated walks
we took every day I spent at your house
(and even as we marked the hours down,
we felt freer, and those talks we had,
beyond our parents' ears, started spilling
over to where they could hear us)-
though actually I was the first to spot it.
We stopped short of where it lay on
its back, entangled in the bushes, its
black eyes still shining, its maw agape.
We could see each small, sharp tooth.
There was no desire to touch it, even
if we couldn't see or smell the rotting
yet. A minute, and we moved on quickly.
But I looked back-you were skipping
on ahead-entranced by how gray it was.
I'd seen roadkill before, but never anything
so whole, as if it had been struck down
not moments before we came along. And-
it's cruel, I know-somehow it reminded
me of you, stunned, silent, halted in your
attempt to cross the street, no matter how
many directions you looked before running.