Three young dead skunks in the ditch
like mile markers. All week long,
I’ve seen carrion dip out of blue 
and onto their carcasses like night.

*

For hours I’ve been trying to write this poem
and talk about something. Every day
the universe turns itself into a fractal. 

*

Skunks torn by buzzards’ beak,
skunks in the ditchline. Everything is fragment 
and highway.

*

                         It’s easier to name it all
than it is to see it, easier to name it 
than to carry it home.