Repaved

This afternoon the thermostat reads 88,
the blacktop warms, so you take a walk

barefoot, season your soles to this new
spring. This road, country & stone-walled,

is over a century old. Now it's a blend
of rock and tar, petroleum, sealant mix

to make a more drivable surface.
When logging trucks pass, they do so

with hums instead of rumbles.
A manufactured intent in sound.

You pass lilacs, caterpillars crossing,
& navigate around the one dead raccoon.

At dawn and dusk, the trucks move smooth
and fast. Prime time for raccoons, possum,

deer, and porcupine. All the others.
You sidestep a pattern of slugs

in the center of the road. It's midday now—
traffic has passed, done its job. The slugs

are fine, like a star in the sky of street.
Alive and communing, performing

their séance. What is that prayer?
The pavement sparkles: the light turns

when it spots through leaves of oak
and maple that shadow the road.

This too can be mesmerizing, all
that covers. The crows pick at

the worms dried in sealant cracks.
The beetles make their way to that one

dead raccoon, as if their duty as six-legged
road crew. Is it possible we sample

small beauty in what we stumble
upon to balance the glut of guilt

in all we make? You turn back,
for your feet are raw from burning.

Porcupette

The chocolate lab split
the baby in two, snapped

the tender spine
with the single vise

of his jaws. Quills,
thorns barely

developed, served poorly
as armor. In soft pairs

they pocked the dog's tongue
which rolled with saliva,

drool dripping to the clinic
floor with each thwap of tail.

On the waiting room bench,
the owner sat back,

let his dog's leash dangle,
drop, go free.

“They're everywhere
out there in the woods by our house

with their goddamn dangerous
spikes. They cross our road

when we drive our truck
home. They're slow,

you know, don't bother
to get out of the way.”

But at least you give them
agency, these selfish creatures

inexplicably squatting
on all the wilderness you own.

Michelle Menting's recent poems, flash nonfictions, and stories appear or are forthcoming in Passages North, Cincinnati Review, About Place, EcoTheo Review, Fourth River, and others. She lives in a small house along a little river in a patch of woods in rural Maine.

Published July 15 2022