The dog that used to stare at our carpool
doing a deer in the headlight
every morning on our way to work down Peridot Road
is winter’s roadkill.
Perhaps, overnight he remembered, by the light of the last winter moon,
the majesty of his father’s father and his father’s hide
shimmering in the black of the slopes, bristling like saguaro
at the sound of smaller animals hiding in the brush,
his body pert from muscle memory of the hunt.
Perhaps, he stepped off the curb feeling an ancient daring
stopped short by a more recent daring
called drinking and driving.
The Mexican poppies are beginning to yellow the road
across which he lays popped open like a pinata,
festive in the colors of blood and guts, head upturned
on the concrete like a frozen howl to the last winter moon.
Zola Gonzalez-Macarambon
Zola Gonzalez-Macarambon lives in the Philippines. She teaches with the Languages, Humanities, and Philosophy Department of Capitol University, in her hometown Cagayan de Oro City, Northern Mindanao.