To the dead coyote on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike
By Regan Schell
Soon,
there will be green.
There will be golden light
and no glass to reflect it.
In the sandy culverts,
highway-side, rubies grow
on dandelion stems.
Honeybees visit like dancers
on stilts, here for a moment,
then loping on to the next.
Sadness clings like wet bed sheets
on skin,
skin clings like pollen
on a windowsill.
Underneath the unfound dream
of a flower egg,
there is the hope of sunlight.
Underneath your sleeping eyelid,
maggots feast on the sight
of yellow light-cones.
We are sloughing through
to the next thing.
We are demanding to look
in its face.
We have no plan for
if it speaks.
Teeth like the edge of a river rock,
throating the air,
searching for the language
to accuse.
Soil knows its purpose,
the worm whispers
its passing by.
The metal pole standing here
knows it can only observe,
and the spinning of
the solid ground goes unnoticed.
Each time a headlight passes,
you become another spirit,
the talisman around
the neck of the mountain,
the head on the pike
to frighten the crows.