Like the throat of a deer arched back,
truck struck,
fit for the jaws of a tiger
but set instead for this mediocrity—
            guard rail and gravel, a grocery bag kiting high.
 
Hell, even the workers paid to pick her body
off the interstate are on furlough, so she’ll be there
today the same as tomorrow,
and in my sorrow or is it
            conceit
 
I think it is only me to notice, to nod
                        yes, baby.  Don’t I know it, your neck,
her neck—bone white, no note to play without the string
attached
but still
                        touchable,
                        wanting to be touched,
 
or at least I want to press that silent piano key,
that soft blanch
of exotic tusk and tooth, that pelt
                        cooled to zero
and colored the illegal bone white
of antique billiard balls and dominoes,
but instead I
keep driving, talking to myself as if I were
                        talking to her.
 
But don’t we all keep driving? Isn’t it dangerous
                        to stop?
What we don’t want to see is
that glass-eyed reply—
                        not a fuck all but an oh well,
 
the sigh of each car passing by.