a eulogy for the dead rat outside my building

I was headed out to go grocery shopping when a food delivery truck ran over a city rat that I thought would outrun it. Its tail was still vibrating as I approached to take a closer look. I’d never seen the immediate aftermath of roadkill and it stuck with me as a weirdly guilty feeling for the rest of the day. I tried composing a poem for it, but it ended up not really being about the rat at all.

Completed: October 2023

Media: Ink with digital color