Poem Beginning with a Line from Levis
As if we’re put on the earth to forget the ending,
I’m arrested each time I see them—
bodies of dogs and coyotes on the road.
Their static figures against the cruise control,
the sustained speed, indifferent wheels
kneading them over and the lack of recognition.
No flinch or yelp, no one stopping
the car to marvel at deadness,
the set precedence. The dogs anonymous
now as asphalt, highway weeds, the air.
Common bodies lacking actual energy,
but they’re shocking—their done aura, a history
instantly interesting. I wonder
if there was such a thing as loneliness
to a coyote. The one with the open mouth,
who had tried to cross the interstate,
smelled the other side, had wild thoughts
pulling her across the painted parallel lines,
had blood or birth or sex willing her forward,
who failed. I wonder if someone will miss
the red spaniel, thought the dog was unique,
an individual with preference and personality,
but how it is equal to its end and no longer
any particular it inhabited. I project
on them my own feeling of being derailed,
taken out from the trajectory of a plan,
surprised with violence which overtook
what was the only ceiling of my life—
the sky. Never casting much shadow,
the dogs intersect two lanes, modest
amongst chaos—rude against the rough
exhaust, commuter cars. I fear they don’t mean
what I want them to, but I am small
to the task of my life. How do I mean
oblivion when I can’t say the words it’s over?
Hypnotic at high speed, I forgot
where I was headed. All the cars
face the same direction. I miss when
I didn’t know the eroding wave of traffic
pulling overtop soft mouths, smoothing
molars into paint. Wheels churn over
a coyote’s form until it isn’t one anymore,
is now everything and not lost.
