When I am overcome
I don't know what sounds
I make. At the intersection
on the way to my daughter's school,
often there is a soft
brown body: dried
blood, mangling pressed
to asphalt. Did it make a muffled,
bitter sound, a small
surprised squeal that grew in size
until it reached the trees
newly flowering along the sidewalk--
But then the momentous
often lasts just a few seconds:
the jarring that wells up
from inside the earth
or from something raking over it
ripples out again,
whatever ambition it had
newly redistributing.