To a Dead Badger

You must have lumbered down this lane,you loaf of bread on legs, wrapped in the dark.

Empty packets of crisps crumpled, beer cans crushed,weeds trampled by teenagers bent on doing

the dumb things they sneak from the family den to do—badger, was a whiff of ferment or deep-fry

what your epicure's nose caught? Behind a treedown a narrow road, you lie on your side,

curled around a predator called pain. You lie in state,the royal robes of some great stench

spreading their imperium. Your lowly subjects,flesh- and blow-fly, bow and scrape

before they feast. For the larger scavengers,they will leave your bones to be scattered later.

In the field across the road, almost invisible,a fox the same shade as the stubble

halts, knight rusted in armor, rusted in place.It tries, across the distance that is history,

to stare us down, we who stand at the footof a death the living want to devour.