We were on the road in Texas
headed for the Arches of Utah.
Visions of Western beauty
framed my imagination
when it happened.

I going 60, she going 3,
her path perpendicular to mine,
not the parallel races with her kind
in the state parks
of summers past.

I barely saw her
as our metal mass
passed over her feathery body.
I vainly hoped
for a merciful timing of our wheels
and her dash.

But I had to check the mirror
in my curious rush
and there she was on the road
this strange but lovely creature
her feathers still drifting
to their eternal rest.

I moaned, "Oh no!"
and belatedly slowed
to cope with the crash within
fearing she had chicks
still in the nest,
trying to convince myself
that she was a he.

But the sadness would not leave.
Even now it clutches me
in the recall of that image
of death on the highway,
the unjust collsion
of two road runners.

09/13/2007

Posted on 09/13/2007
Copyright © 2025 Glenn Currier