Nicky's Road Kill

Nicky, the neighbor’s dog, drags a road kill home. A beautiful pelt like those fox shoulder garments women wore in the       forties. But the head is crushed beyond recognition—maybe it’s a fox and that’s       why Nicky, a canine, is conducting this wake on our front lawn. Loretta, my wife’s mother, is in the hospital again. Forty years of Crohn’s       disease has finally broken her. It may take some time but she won’t bounce back from this episode. None of us are sorry to see her die, not even Loretta. There will be a       thunderous downpour during her last hour. I like the story about the nuns hitting Peg in school–contumacy is a sin. Emile and Loretta considered it an inappropriate punishment for their       cherished adopted daughter. So they pulled her out of Catholic for public school. They did their own       thinking about discipline. Early Spring, peepers all night, then the birds take over at dawn.       Soothing—the mourning doves. During this half of the year, May through October, we live in a green       bower. We turn the house inside out, move into the mountains. In their annual order, flowers appear in the understory: coltsfoot, hepatica       and trillium through to the end, late purple aster, spotted joe pye and       pearly everlasting. We let Nicky nurse her road kill, watch over it, roll around on it. Don’t let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in the passing lane.