Roadkill in Pennsylvania
on sunday you will find me kneeling on the back streets
placing baby blankets on dead animals and weeping.
I come to bury them, mourning the immensity
of these singular lost lives, grieving their unattained
future. consider it practice for laying a blanket over
your sleeping body, sliding my fingers through your
hair and trying to put this love to rest. squirrels don’t
ask to be hit by cars and I didn’t ask to be hit by you
but here is a dead squirrel lying prone on the dividing
line, the image of dreadful misleading peace, and here
I am wiping the blood from my nose, an illustration
of ruined compassion. still, I hold my best hand out,
soft palm facing upward, waiting for lightning to
strike.
**************************************************************************************************************************
Two Times I Thought You Were Going to Hit Me
1. when I asked you if I had squeezed your hand too hard,
and you looked at me from the corner of your eye, mouth
just a twitch at the corner, growled “no” as though I’d
asked you to crush a baby bird. our hands still intertwined,
my heart bled open and I
tensed for the strike
racing to justify why I deserved this
(bones heal faster than hearts)
2. when I apologized for raising my voice when i’d had every
right to, when I apologized for every bad thing I maybe could
have done, when I apologized for living and your balled
up fists told me you were crying, red face and shaking voice and
irrepressible something, and the way you looked at me my
heart clenched up and I
prepared for the
strike, wondering how long it would take me to die.
Katelin Hayes is a baby poet and aspiring ray of sunshine who goes to a tiny liberal arts school in Maryland. She loves squirrels, video games, philosophy, bunnies, and life. She hopes that her experiences can be used as a force for good in this crazy world.
By Joaquin Golez