Heaving up from the black,
arms spread
and the body hidden, caught
_____— up from the tar, sick
for purchase, neck and head
curved in to that labor,
the opossum, mid-lane, clings
to what seems an edge of road
with its front half, now its whole:
_____legs, tail, sex, all gone, just
implication under the lane which does not give
or hold anything
but itself
_____and a hawk perched,
adamant, a boulder in the road’s
furious current, unafraid
of the tires’ jaws swung wide
around its body clamped
to a carcass too
heavy to lift, too raw
to leave, the hawk
steady, a demolition claw
grasping at a bridge’s hips
__________— as one
remembered face might
deflect some structure, might disclose
a native grace in its
flayed and
unseeable parts