Coyote Poem #2

On the highway a patch turned red
animal ground into the asphalt
a piece of brown fur maybe a deer
or a coyote

I passed at high speed Doppler-
effected a noise like a cry
bent out of shape
two high-speed waves the sign says

15 years for killing a worker
how to calculate the value of a life
balance the worker’s wailing mother
against the motorist’s (coyote

howling in the distance) consider
the propensity of each to ghost
their twitter dates or smoke cigarettes (to steal
birds’ eggs to skirt the edges

of suburban neighborhoods) the amount
of value they add to the earth
linear miles of highway that could have been
constructed what value in an animal (I’m sorry)

dead on I-96 in Ionia County under
construction we construct
meaning out of numbers
and letters 80 mph or 15 years