Squirrel
guts smashed, head flat,
on the concrete.
Its damp innards—
a crow’s lunch.
Smoke streams from my nostrils—
wisssssssp—
out the window.
Grey haired, rat haired
opossum lays near the levee,
bloated.
Someone tall, short, fat, skinny
awaits—
mother, father, children, dog
—my arrival.
Rain spits.
My vapor,
pizza vapor
fog the windows.
I take a right onto Newell.
Dark, proud, calm
Martin Luther King Jr. stares
from a church mural.
I take a left on 4th.
Painted gold, sitting atop
a funeral home pillar
a lion peers across the potholed street.
A peeling white house.
I stop.
I open my rusty door.
I lift the bag from the seat.
I stroll up the cracked walk.
I knock.
The smell of weed creeps.
A dark man, holding a can of Steeley,
answers.
“12.97, ” I smile, I say,
"Single topping, pepperoni.
Rainy. A hell of a morning.”
He hands me 2 fives, 3 ones.
“Keep the change.”
Three cents
jingle in my hand.
I stroll down the cracked walk.
The bag tucked under my arm.
I mutter profanity and drive away.
Under an alley’s hedge a
tire tromped groundhog
exhales
its last breath.
