What's Left Behind

What’s Left Behind

One mid-September afternoon

I peddle past a chipmunk, leveled

and now, a garden glove, its 
fingers

splayed intact. The chipmunk’s form,

his nut-brown stripes of perfect fur 
are

one dimension of who he was.

Home by dark, I lay my bike

by plants and grasses, things that bloom

by plan and cluster in my flower bed.

A raccoon’s planted by the berry bush!

I stop my eyes to take him in.

He lies in swoon face down and never

moves at my approach, not to

bother a soul. I slide my shovel

beneath his weight, surprised he is

so light and lay him in the barrow,

his fine long fingers draped along

the edge. We barrel along the winding

drive and the moon lays bare his fight—

the scat, the tufts of bloodied fur.

We cross Fray’s Road, his nails shine sharp

beneath the moon, and he and I

agree to slide him 
deep within

the anonymous trees.

Back home the ground is writhing

in that soft and pungent place

maggots already thriving

on what he's left behind.

—Barbara Trachtenberg