One day, I will write a love poem

but today, I am counting

the highway deaths between

Indiana and Ohio, cataloguing

each broken body left to print

itself upon the pavement,

antlers askew and tails puffed

and pathetic, crimson dried sticky

and glossy on the side of the road,

each murder a cold case even while

the sun beats warmth into veins

that will never send movement

through their nimble legs or

twitching noses again

and I am remembering what it is to die

like that – splayed and rotting and delicate,

laid out in all my perverse glory for all

with rubberneck eyes to feast upon,

and still, I am choosing to reject

the omen of it all, to keep my course

to where there is a casket made of glass

and filled with laughter, to lie down

in it and turn my face into your shoulder

and say, quite honestly, “Thank you for

having me,” and, “I am glad to be here

with you, even with blood on my tires.”