i took my Faber-Castell oil pastels and pulled

out the wine red coloured chalk

scratching an angel outline on the asphalt

around the flaking raccoon skin on the

side of the road.

the muddy tire tracks painted his furry dead

body squished into the gravel like a canvas smeared

with organs, flipped inside out for all to see.

melted charcoal black eyes, suffocated

me, until my pulse flooded my ears

inhuman screams drenched the milky

early morning haze, the sandpaper tongue of death licking

his matted fur clean. i crumpled under the weight of

the corpse on the side of the road until i

snapped the pastel in my hands and got chalky

pigment all over my aching fingers and breathed in

the rot of sadness through my lungs,

waiting for the ambulance that would never come.