Pink Moon Armadillo
The road bent serpentine,
and an armadillo waddled across it
slow like it hauled the Strawberry
Moon on its back, rosy and ripe.
A truck was coming, lights white
as a cottonmouth’s grin,
and the animal froze,
Outlaw Quadruped
knowing he was caught
far east of No Man’s Land.
I pulled over and killed the engine,
smelled the ferns through the open
window, damp green musk always
reminding me of the side of a lover’s neck,
or a hummingbird cradled by the left
hand against the nose and mouth,
or morningtime way up north in the Carolinas.
The armadillo made the ditch.
The truck never slowed.
The pink moon kept dragging itself west.
I put my gun back under my seat.
