Undoing Urgency

You can’t put a stoplight where

There is no intersection.

If someone dies like a deer

You’d see dragged to the wayside,

They’ll get a memorial, maybe,

A few years later a berm,

If there are funds for roadwork

In that part of the country

That year. We know this. We’ve seen

The parallel black tire marks

That swerved with the futile brakes,

Then seen the flowered crosses,

And we’ve taken note and placed

Some of the names within us.

And we’ve seen the concrete berms.