2pm, Dusty Californian Freeway

 

2pm, on a dusty Californian freeway:

in one fateful split
second, a grocery store worker
lets go of the lead,
his day-off descending
into a day of chaos and a quick wizz
of blurred car horn blasts.

 

Out the back window I see
two dark figures running mad,
making it
through two lanes of hot-headed traffic
but biting the dust
on the third.

 

In my head I hear them
calling out to each other
in mangled barks, brothers
of a species
not meant for the inner-city evil
of modern man.

 

And then they bounce
and fall limp, bodies twisting
on the hot tarmac -
fading to dust
in the rear-view mirror.