after Wallace Stevens 

I
Over the week, the baby
deer collapsed. Its body
turned into many fibers.

II
Two tawny-headed hawks raised wing
and showed thir red tails, dodging
the blur of cars on highway.

III
To a maggot, roadkill 
is also home.

IV
Roadkill on the highway, roadkill
on the old city route. A family is missing
its little gray 
something.

V
I don’t know why I’m stuck on the dead,
their fragile bodies & mine, flying
down Highway 25 like instinct,
like always.

VI
The squirrel never looks both ways.
It runs & runs, doesn’t stop
until it runs sweetly
under the oncoming truck’s tire.

&3/4
I weep, swerve grateful
in the rain, miss
the slew-footed green turtle
& his wise and wrinkled body. Slowly, smart,  
he waits for space. I hope
he made it to some cowpond.