Ode To Roadkill
To the possum in the ditch
Behind the school
May you sleep in peace
Sending your sweet waft
Of guts and gore through
The half-opened windows of
My classroom on this
First day of fall
I meant to move you in
The morning when I arrived
Before the cleaning crew
But your uncanny eyes
And opposable thumbs
Made me a coward
The garden shovel that
The maintenance men tried
On your decaying body was
Too small to hold you
Your corpse was the size of a
Snow shovel found in the
Shed after much searching
You were the weight of
Slush on a day of sleet
When the temperature rises
And the earth thaws the
Lower layer of ice to a slurry
Plus your fur not weightless
But still soft looking
The expression fixed on
Your face by the car
That killed you
Neither scared nor sorry but
Salve Caesar
I am who I am about to die
Salute you and survive you
Possums have outlived
The dinosaurs the prehistoric
And ancient ages
They have watched us with
Their sardonic smile
Playing possum
As civilizations faltered and fell
Was it wrong for my students
To see your dead body
Feet up and stiff tail askew
With your intestine unraveling
In a curl on the pavement
As they came to school
They will unfold too
In their day they will die
And maybe they will meet you
On the other side of the road
The ditch where every
Child someday will lie
–Ticky Kennedy
Reclusive Poet in Residence
SchoolNewsToday.com
NOTE
Possums have opposable thumbs, have lived for more than 65 million years, and can play dead, “14 Things You Don’t Know About the Opossum.”
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