An Opossum On Its Universal Death Poem by Alain Gonzalez

I'm about to make a left at the corner
of W 49th st and 12 avenue and I see,
plain daylight this disgusting
opossum, poor thing
in the intersection living the agony
of an incomplete death.

In the split of a second,
the bend of my eye catches
its revolting contortions, its face
a little bit more dead than the rest of the body;
I see it turning, tossing on the asphalt,
as if dying were an uncomfortable
itch, something just as easy to
get rid of.

And then my mind starts to wander
till the farthest corner of the universe;
I look back and think OMG,
there's an opossum agonizing
on one of the Earth's corners infinite,
and everything else seems,
just like that,
so distant in comparison.

How am I going to forget about this creature?
Its repulsive fate and the macabre
way to make the opossum go?

It's a good thing after all,
that I came to a place so remote,
so quiet, in which oblivion's gravity
could make my thoughts slow down,
perhaps stop,
so that I can forget.