Deer

A hardened shell of sticky fur,

the likes of botched taxidermy

writing on the winter roadside

in shades of brown and red.

Limbs frozen on frost pavement,

coagulated hair and bone bushels

that point every which way

like some grotesque compass.

Once graceful torso reduced

to raw anatomical chunks,

scattered about stained snow

and in tire tracks up the road.

Eyes wide in perpetual fear,

glazed with crystal flakes

pulling pupils downward

into fate’s cold embrace.