Night shift
My headlights pick out
a deer at the side of the road
between the hospital
and the cemetery.
I slow as I approach. Shift gears down.
Take a long look:
it was dead, fresh, only just struck.
No sign of life. No other traffic around.
You know what it’s like
to die
alone on a hard surface,
no one watching over as taillights recede.
.
Stewart Carswell is from the Forest of Dean. He currently lives and works and writes in Cambridge. His poems have recently been published in Envoi, Cadaverine, and Ink Sweat & Tears, and included in Best New British and Irish Poets 2016. His debut pamphlet, Knots and branches, is published by Eyewear.
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The ending shocks as the earlier reference to the cemetery sinks in! Well written.