Yesterday a milk snake. The day before, a baby skunk. Today a sapsucker.
—Chip Blake
What damage do I do?
The night avoids my eyes, so does the road.
I am never wholly myself, unto myself.
I need to know the life span
of the June bug who, like a small bison,
headbutts my summer screen door,
why the luna moth has no mouth,
or if it was a sapsucker not a downy woodpecker
at the feeder a few days ago.
A friend of mine stops to bury
any roadkill he comes across,
each journey he takes is like the end
of a war, the dead lining a road
that was supposed to lead to somewhere
greater. I saw the first firefly
of the season not out in the field
hovering like a star above the unwieldy
night grass, but on the window near the light
on my desk, his own light dark.
I have held the dead
in my hands like my friend.
And like him, I want to leave
nothing to strangers. I want to bury
all that I find with its hunger and awe.