Fractured Pirouette

Memorials abound along the edge
of highways, almost roadside – dare I say? –
attractions, with their flowered crosses, gay
in contrast to their meaning’s impact, ledge

between the living and the dead, a wedge
that sometimes drives the two apart. Each day,
my work commute transports me past a way
now withered, now, at times, revived, a dredge

of anonymity I’ve seen at least
these fifteen years, unnamed but surely dear
to those who knew their faces. With alarm,

I notice now a slender, stiffened beast,
a doe in fractured pirouette, dead near
the shrine, and marvel how she came to harm.