Route 116
The shoulder is broken, I walk the white line.
Passing cars don’t slow down.
Where the water runs under the road: black-eyed Susans,
smooth brown stones,
a rusted wire fence bent to the ground.
I don’t see the moose until her calves stop.
They turn to regard me, the cow ambles forward, focused on crossing the road.
A man calls from a yellow shed: They come through all the time.
Also bears. They come for the salt. Last week two bulls —
racks this big, and he spreads his arms wide.
I know my own craving for talk.
My right knee aches, a stick pokes my heel.
One black crow watches from the fence’s top rail.
In the field a mouse limp in the second crow’s beak.
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