Possum

This poem appears in the Winter-Spring 2013 issue of Modern Age. To subscribe now, go here.

White-faced, in spare fur, he stood hunched over his paws,
in the middle of the country road. His bob,
nearly imperceptible as he lifted his maw,
the blood and spittle that ran along the teeth line

he could not, with gravity, altogether close.
I saw him struggle, dying in the worst,
the only possible way: a de-petaled rose.
I watched for a while, got out of the car. I sat

near his end, as close as my squeamishness could dare.
Mr. Death, here is thy sting: you sit close by
as well, off stage, like some huge oblivious bear,
close enough to us to be a palpable threat,

but unconcerned, your chin lolling along your fat chest,
caught in the busy flies above your head,
your own preserve. I want to ask you, Guest,
“Why don’t we cut cards or something?” But you are a bear

and won’t talk. A whiff of honey, a sun bright enough
to make you squint; that’s as far as you will go.
Possums and people die, each in time, with his bluff.
And a person, if he is blessed, might get to see

it beforehand, the walnut hard casing of his bier,
the packed dirt he grows between—both leaf and root,
this vegetable kingdom. There is no mercy here,
just green, for as far as the human eye can see.