Goose Sestina

Driving down the greasy street
I saw a man holding a dead goose.
Her neck was broken, there was no blood.
He stood pinioned on the median,
Weeping for his snapped-back friend.
The geese return in April, many fall.

He waved goodbye last fall.
Somewhere barefoot in the Baltimore street,
Hands still oily from the wrist of his friend.
The head of the V was meant for his goose
He lay, arms out on the median
And felt their parallel lines in his blood.

He is convinced only he has blood:
A small girl flew from under a car, he watched her fall
Hard and twisted in the I-95 median.
She did not cry out in the Baltimore street.
She did not bleed, he thought of his darling goose,
Because her bones snapped, just like his friend.

In the years before he met this friend
He walked around trying to taste his own blood.
There were years before his goose
Where he wanted to feel his fall
Perched in the center of I-95, to become the street
Hunched to spring from the median.

She found him there on the I-95 median
Stood before him and his asphalt friend
He lay whole in the street
The fault lines pooling with his blood
He survived his fall.
And woke up to his goose.

He saw his God in her, his goose
There on the I-95 median.
He made her his reason he did not fall.
He asked his dear friend
To come back when spring comes or his blood,
He told her, would be back in street.

She flew too fast back to Baltimore, playing his God, his friend
Through the night until she dropped, there was no blood.
Just a delicate broken body, twisted in the street.