My Cycle Must Be Coming

I saw a dead animal on the side of the road today 

Head cocked to the side

Arms crossed 

Body lax

A pose I’ve seen many times on those simply resting, courting death but never quite meeting it

A pose that hurts 

I kissed my metal, knowing a car had hit it / that 

Dead

Animal

I cried 

I grew angry

What a dis/

jointed

Bro

K

En

World we have created 

What a cruel fate the creatures we exist beside

Must face 

Because our lives are governed by capital

Our roads governed by capital

Our instinct to step over

Drive past

Keep moving

Governed by capital

And all the isms it births

I saw a dead animal on the side of the road today

And three more tomorrow

And more the next day

And countless in the days before

I cried, I grew angry, I wrote this poem

As a piece of my heart chipped off

Sojourned back down the road, leaving me behind

Seeking the dead

Offering life through acknowledgment 

I saw a dead animal and knew

It must be that time of the month 

When it’s impossible to pretend I don’t exist

When everything abrades

And nothing brushes off the shoulder easily as dust

Everything sinks into the skin, present and cloying 

Like dust

I saw the dead, mourned it, mourned the life we’ve built /

That leaves no room for them—the dead—before, during, or after

Death

And then a few days later, I myself bled