by Dylan Mahood
How much longer until my tires splinter,
their rubber entrails decorating the interstate’s parched shoulder like roadkill left to dry?
Why do dead foxes always smile in their sleep?
And deer always splay out
like they’re testing beds built of asphalt, like they’re bleeding Jesuses
in medieval paintings taking
up room?
Who is responsible
for the dozens of monarchs
slain by my car between Texas and California: me, the people who built the road,
or the butterflies?
Which came first: car or carnage?