It’s a gray road that slips past

A proud picket fence fades beside it

Bearing a no-fishing sign to the speeding traffic

Lights dance and buzz across the pond

Nestled by the sign, fence, and road. Triumvirate. 

It’s the first to salt and sweat when black ice shivers underfoot

The asphalt pitches toward the water and collects cars

Almost as a child would fist toys through impossibilities,

The procession of metal cages flashing alarm.

This broad raceway harbors spirits

Creatures felled in transit, graying with dust

Until ground to beefy pulps or scavenged by a more fortunate neighbor

One limbo can spell accidents to Strangers, or mistakes.

Carcasses rest under the walnut tree, its fruit in various shades of decay

This green and poison; this crusting, bruised with a cracked shell

She shudders her progeny off like so many paratroopers

Who wish only to provide her company and support

But not one rooted after all these years: fifty, more

As the smoky night mews for entry

Cars rumble and gleam in the dark

Like passing dragons who cough exhaust.

One used to park, to fish

Then the fence and the metallic sign

The double-lined road

The quiet, indulgent lives that click off lights, draw blinds closed

And the hum that’s almost silence.