Today's poem is by John Smith

Rolling in the Dead
        for Lauren

My daughter and I took River Road for the tiger lilies
and rapids, one curve so sharp we lost sight of a black sports car
in front of us, and when we rounded the bend,
I spotted something white flopping just off the shoulder
in the drainage ditch. A dog's been hit, I gasped,
U-turned, raced back, flashing my headlights at oncoming traffic.
Hurry, Daddy, hurry! Lauren pleaded from her car seat.
I cut across double yellow lines and skidded to a stop
on a grassy embankment. When I swung open my door,
a deadly odor gagged me, and I saw the white mop of a dog
squirming on its back, rubbing head, neck, and shoulders
against a maggot-covered possum rotting in the ditch.
Kicking at the air between us, I yelled, Go home,
scatted the dog away, watched it trudge off begrudgingly,
leering over a grimy shoulder as I turned to the horrified face
in the car window. I knew the dog would be back as soon as I left.
He had to come back. Just as I had to get back in the car
and ease my daughter's distress, blame wolves in dogs' ancestry
for their beastly ways, and later lie in bed turning the rancid
memory over in my head, rubbing up against the rotten truth,
anointing myself with the oily stench of what the living do to survive.

Copyright © 2024 John Smith All rights reserved
from All My Ghosts Are Here
Finishing Line Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission