Each morning the crows find
the animals whose journey
failed to cross the road completely.
They locate the tumbled carcasses
off to the side of the highway,
in the ditch where they rolled
or the splat still plastered
to the asphalt as blood congeals
with the oily, black surface.

The road-shoulder graveyard,
bone yard: antlers,
porcupine quills, wind driven
feathers. Flies navigate
the bands of heat lifting decay
to our noses and, soon,
maggots consume the red flesh,
the bacteria that swell a body
no more in motion.

Soon the coyotes will figure out
that they should herd their prey
to the road, let the big rigs
take down the moose, the elk
too large for the pack.