BECAUSE WE DON’T WALK ON RED ANYMORE

A small skunk is dead in the intersection 

of the busy road, intestines swirled in a tiny pile,

a slash of vermilion stabbing through its stripes

fluttering in the spring breeze 

cars from one direction zooming over and past.

I couldn’t begin our walk, watching car after car 

miss the dead little one, slight-swerving right, left 

making the slightest movement

not to re-crush the thing that had been alive 

maybe ten minutes earlier as we left our building,

holding hands in the blue-sky morning of spring

pulling us into a casual stroll 

filled with sculptures of all sorts, some bizarre,

and almost-blooming crabapple trees, pink, white

and though I did not behave like Gerald Stern

who would perhaps have stopped traffic

touched the face of the dead baby skunk, stare 

into its eyes and pull it off the road, I will 

stand and watch for a car that does not care, 

for a car going forty miles an hour

whose wheels will hit the soft bump and discard 

caution for expedience. But minutes pass. We must begin.

All cars continue to clear the dead skunk, zooming 

slight swerves with consequence and intention. 

The light is green. The dead little one’s fur 

flutters black and white in the spring breeze. 

~~~

THE WILD HORSE PONDERS THE CONCEPT OF HOME

Empty space above my curving spine

creating invisible air scallops as I speed

galloping caressed with tickling of mane and tail

challenging wind and rock

that hold whispers and tears 

of those who arrive seeking my capture

I pose, ponder a different home

food provided, shelter against storms

then turn back, back again to the wind. 

~~~

ONCE UPON A DANCER

I will never be midair again

but the memory’s 

imprinted

of flying arms 

attached but free

legs muscle-fierce cutting air 

poised in perfect turnout

for one brief flash 

of hot white time

~~~

STUFF ON THE ROAD

I expect treads—slabs, chips, shreds— 

black leaps from eighteen wheeling trucks,

rock eruptions, swirled miniature intestines 

of squirrel or squashed possum, 

stickle-haired leavings of porcupine.

Instead on this day, 70 mph on I-90, 

here are fawns, mauled into shapes 

until now unseen, some flattened 

then eaten into bones and skin, others 

posed in final sculpture,

some heads destroyed, some mauled,

open-bodied, some eyes intact,

sweetness staring forever at speeding travelers.

Road signs warn of leaping deer

but those designs of the full-grown

and these two, five, seven, twelve, twenty—

they are the babies, sweet-faced, destroyed.

Stomach rebels against the count.

One is an empty sack of skin, 

head flattened. Another has legs akimbo, 

no head in sight, others whose faces look into mine.

~~~

WHAT MY MOTHER COULD DO 

She taught me to swim in deep water

she knew exactly what to do to help

not by telling me how or saying the drain

in the turqoise pool did not spout monsters

and that my fear of monsters sliding up

was imaginary and completely irrational

but by slipping into the pool with me

asking me to match her sidestrokes 

with a promise that she would protect me

would not let anything happen to me.

I was a fearful child, but that day sun gleamed

over our slithering bodies in the cool water

I believed her. and so stretched my body 

parallel to hers with light splashes

side-stroking the length of the vacation pool

trembling inside with eyes on her smile.

We streamlined together over the deep-water drain

making it to where we both could stand. Ever since

even without her near, I dive in and speed past

the drain, still fearful but triumphant. She taught me

to travel through the imagined monsters

all the way to the shallow end, rising up,

breathing in deeper oxygen, the relief

of half my body above water, feet down

where I still stand, heart paddling.