I’m sorry for driving past and driving past and driving past all winter and into spring, and for watching, with interest—even, I’m ashamed to say, a kind of gross curiosity—as you became less and less of what you were, as you were ground down by innumerable tires into bone, fur, and dirt, as you were picked apart by magpies and crows.

I would like to be the kind of person who looks away from the slumped backbone, the twisted leg, the handful of feathers, flickering without flight in the gusts of dusty farm-to-market traffic. But I’m afraid I’ll always stare.