Rufus found a possum dead in the street near pines and manzanita.
When I topped the hill, the dog sat near the body, leaning over to catch
the scent. That possum wasn’t playing. Ants were already at the eyes.
I surprised myself, reaching out to stroke the sleek, silver fur unruffled
by the quick flash and slam of the speeding wheel. No sign of death
but the stillness. Yet the possum I remember best was a late one, alive.
Rufus and I walked through moonlight and dark pines in the smallest
hour of the morning after too much beer and noise. The dog saw
the movement on the path ahead first, looking back to see if I saw.
We were slow, but we were gaining on the possum as we passed
a streetlight. Under a sky black with stars, man, dog, and possum
walked side by side in sodium-blue light, all glancing at each other
passing through intimate darkness together. That was a long time ago.
The creek and the street, the trees and the path are far from here.
Even the stars are different. The dog is dead now. The night goes on.
Yet on that path, I know a possum still walks the dark through pines,
ambling at a possum’s chosen pace through midnight to tomorrow.
This poem first appeared in Other Poetry (2012).
—
Eric Paul Shaffer is author of eight volumes of poetry, most recently Green Leaves: Selected & New Poems. Others include Even Further West; A Million-Dollar Bill; Lāhaina Noon; and Portable Planet. More than 650 individual poems appear in over 300 reviews in the USA, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Nicaragua, India, Iran, Scotland, Singapore, and Wales. Shaffer lives on Oʻahu with his magnificent other Veronica and a delightful little dog named Kona.
