Snow pixelates a body sprawled
on the highway’s pale dashes.
 
I am called to its form, spare
as a fallen poplar, by death’s
 
palpable flare. My headlights
irradiate the ears’ rusty folds,
 
the soft mouth swallowing
kilowatts. What is more
 
honest than her halved head
& parchment tongue —
 
soon to be reduced to
effluvium, residue?
 
Before the doe sees death,
does she hear it sirening
 
toward her? Does she become
another anonymous animal —
 
everyone’s bounty & no
one’s burden? Why regard
 
her as deity or dead novelty?
Or pare her to sustenance
 
or the sum of her parts?
As she lies beyond cold
 
& conjecture, I make her
kin. I do not nation her,
 
but praise her ordinary life:
her robust pleasures
 
& sorrows. Pray we never
grow out of tenderness.
 
As I get older, every
ending makes me
 
incoherent with love.
If only you knew,
 
how much I miss you.

—Cara Waterfall

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