Campfire Songs
Digestive space,
A reason to start numbering again.
An overestimation of the pebbles, the piles.
I wish you could have seen it. The white belly
peppered with rot. The odd-cocked jaw of roadkill.
Must have miscounted the miles and ended up far
from home. Bloated necked, white bulging. The boys
back home call that a shiner—it’s a pretty bad one.
The road ripped through her skull like
spilled ink. Numeric space,
A reason to ingest again—
I wish you could have seen it. Splayed gentle,
like mouths on a mirror. I’m probably
lying, it’s easier this way. Twisting your skin
around your ankles. Bending the toenails blue.
I laid down next to the dead deer so she
wouldn’t feel embarrassed
Mitchell Angelo is a senior creative writing major at Purchase College, and the Managing Editor of Gutter Mag. His microwave is haunted. His work has previously appeared in Gandy Dancer, Paintbucket.page, and The Westchester Review.
