Weve walked up and down the road we
live off for the better part of a week and a half now
and whenever we walk along its west
side
either she or I become distracted
distracted by the painters on ladders stripping caulking
priming and repainting a three-storeyed Colony
home
or the chicken
coops alongside
the road their white
flurries cantankerous crowing and
bright-eyed sensibilities
or high above
the gravel the huge black turkey vultures lurking in
their aged roosts above the shoddy roothumped tarmac that runs over the toes of
side-by-side massive eucalyptus
their
shaggy bark in sheaves dangling like wanton
unkempt locks or beards
of beatniks and hippies
and distracted walking side-by-side she outside me away from the roads center
she nearly always steps on a dead bird a tortured disfigured lemniscate of fleshy
bits still
holding their bruises then desiccated pale bone and feathers shards
honed into dissimilar spikes
loosened gravel haphazardly has been
flung over its remains dusting and filling
it
obscuring it
perhaps a fitting attempt to hide
it from our fascination with decay which
always and invariably
accompanies roadside carcasses of animal and fowl
their miserable taxidermy
we talk how human remains have
somehow slipped this quiver
as if holy or sacred
apart from other earthlings
as if deserving better
but not
we could surmise this inevitability
but Im to be cremated and she buried
in wicker
so who would we be to say
so who would we be to say
when we first found it near a
crumbling curb nearly under the arch of a
bramble and thicket
we failed to move it off the
street
thinking back we were in a hurry going somewhere
and
unspoken we allowed or acknowledged someone else would discover him or her
and
remove him or her from the road at least
to nestle among the roots of the coppice
and the odd loose leaves there
but that did not happen as
we discovered when she nearly stepped on it again
and nearly stepped on it again
and nearly stepped on it
again
however near the center of the disintegrating road almost across from it now lays a fresh mangled and crushed remains
of a . . . squirrel
we imagine
I assume it is better to
imagine it a squirrel than a wee dog or mute cat
though frankly the cat was an afterthought theyre rarely stupid
to
run before a car or truck
we take queer solace
that he or she is not alone joined by either
he or she
we are queer earthlings reasoning our ways out of neglected common
responsibilities
Queer
1225, Sunday,
23 11. 14
