orris√

How is it my life might matter more than this unfortunate soul--

With his limbs embalmed by the heat of two or three days,
reaching up to the heavens; his claws curled mid-stride as if
considering to cross this tarmac of death on his back
which behold has claimed him as if surrendering
--I yield to your might, your machinery, I yield.

I can almost see his eye with its pupil so close to the road,
obfuscated by the torn flesh (some winking bone);
heroical partings the derma, the muscle, the tendons, the sinew,
and yielded him to stone--

I like to think that eye never saw, never knew what hell befell its owner.
That the impact occurred within the split second of blinking:
the proverbial yang of ocular function took leave from its yin
and closed itself to the light. That he did not know; that he did not witness
such a brash and vile event of a tire rushing o’er him. Then the clonk,
the white light, a halo a train wreck, (though more inconspicuous and quick)
--eternal blackness rushes in like a cloak.

How is it my life might matter more than this young friend?

I too am dodging chevys and hondas and rams,
I enter the fray thinking: How can I not stop for this horror,
as an elderly couple in a maroon Hyundai
rubber-necks at my freak show; they pass by creeping along,
incredulous, disgusted--excited, intrigued?

I hold him by his flaccid hands,
his palms strangely familiar
as my own fated tarot reading
and together we waddle to the curb
all side to side momentum
his body is pendulous, and swings.

I cry by the side of the road
his eye finally revealed. Such trust gained
when all is lost--alas it was open and
I wonder,
might traffic have stopped for me?