I glanced over, in between
the gaps of cars on the interstate,
and saw the back end of a deer –
two legs twisted in the gravel and tail
tinted red.
His body completely ripped in half.

I turned my head and straight up
the other side of the road,
not twenty feet in front of me,
lay the rest of the young buck’s torso –
neck broken, head lulled barely touching
the white line, antlers gnarled and chipped away.

I wanted to slow down, to find the engine
powerful enough to shred
a part of nature without leaving any trace
of remorse. To know how the deer must’ve caused
such a splatter of guts and fur and dust,
clinging to tire treads and front grilles.

But all I could taste was the acidic lump
rising in my throat as I pushed harder on the gas pedal,
the leftover pebbles sticking to the deer’s torn tissue
like my tongue to the roof of my mouth, its entrails festering -
as if reaching across two lanes for his missing part.
The blood had dried up days ago.