sudden death

Road kill images too gruesome to show
I see them riding my bike along the side of the road
All variety of wild animals and birds
Snuffed out in a moment of sudden death.

This is not a sports metaphor.
If you can’t bear to even hear about it
Don’t read on. You have been warned.
If you are thinking it is fresh meat you disgust me.

They are dead dead, soon decomposing
Stretched into two dimensions, hard to identify.
The snapping turtle caught my eye the other day
Trying to determine what creature got crushed there.

One moment I am riding along enjoying myself
Taking in the sweet smells that trigger memories
Hearing the birds calling, admiring the trees,
Minding the whirr behind me of tire rubber on asphalt.

When looking down I see a fresh carcass
Not the glimpse you see from a speeding car.
I see the blood and disemboweled guts.
I see the maggots then the skeleton picked clean.

Why don’t I look away? I suppose you do.
I see chipmunks and squirrels, deer and possum,
Raccoons and rabbits, a muskrat, bluejays.
Today I saw a young fox kit killed.

I saw it crossing the road as I approached.
I saw the SUV cruising along coming towards us.
I heard the thump and arrived to the spot
As the fox twitched and the blood ran from its mouth.

On the ride back the flies were already feeding
A bike ride like this is a psychic trauma
What we witness happens to us.
So alive one moment, quite dead the next.

I wonder if I may be clipped by some car going by
I remember the thump of the car killing the pedestrian
Years ago crossing 1st Avenue at 4th Street
You don’t forget these things.

I remember Ed Dougherty next to me on the picket line
37 years ago now, crushed under the tractor trailer
Lying in the road lifeless, chest split open
And now I take horrible pictures of road kill that I don’t show you.