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.
The Poetry Shed 
The ending shocks as the earlier reference to the cemetery sinks in! Well written.