Roadkill

He hears again the far-off jiggling of keys, the throaty cough of ignition, recalls strafing lights on a night-blurred road. Moths, like pale flowers, crash against the windscreen. Over-reaching branches whip back and forth, warping a transfixed retina. A gritty sleet, then, the bloodied head, the matted fur, the flaying shanks; a frozen shock laid bare. Returning to the garage, warm metal ticks, he stares at a dark windscreen, the dead spread across his mind still looking for a way out.