We try not to think about it
gathering our burdens:
the squirrels clipped mid-trip,
the groundhogs and sparrows.
The sudden deer who spent
his final minutes fitting
into someone's history,
glistening in a backseat
among shards haloed with mouths
of streetlight. The struck mother
raccoon and her three wretched young,
necks wrung with a mercy
someone's child will always question.
We stare across our damage
into cornstalks or shivering
wheat, where the tenuous needle
of crickets mourns the end of summer
for anyone who needs to listen.

Theresa Boyar