Road Kill
Gale Acuff
Gale Acuff Page 1
 
My dog's been run over so many times
after having been run over the first
time that his body's an accordion
and I'm surprised, as I wait for traffic
to slack off so that I can set him free
from the Georgia asphalt, that I don't hear

music. I'm taking this pretty well though
he's deader than dead, if deader than dead
is possible. It's Saturday morning
and I sleep late - no brain-deadening school
today - and I have to cross the highway
and its four lanes to check the newspaper
(the county won't move our box to this side
of the road). I don't know how long my dog's
been dead but I thought I heard brakes squealing
last night, though that may have been Mother (I



sleep right above my parents' bedroom and
I'm proud to say I know what goes on down
there on Friday nights?the old folks still have
some snap, crackle, and pop left in them). Did
I hear something being smacked, too? Was that

Father, falling out of bed again or
just as likely, pushed? Whatever I heard
- as if I'd felt it myself - I fell back
to sleep. Now this. When it's clear both ways, I

cross. I start with his tail and pull him up
and he tears off in one piece and I hold
him up like a big flat rat and walk back
to safety and if someone ran me down
I didn't feel it. Not that I don't feel