Once on the Interstate in downtown Atlanta

I saw a goose — a beautiful Canada goose —

trapped against the concrete barrier

that separated North from South.

 

I saw him in a blur

as I whizzed by at 80.

Alive, terrified, he pressed himself as far

from the traffic as he could.

There were so many cars —

there wasn’t room for him to stand up,

to fly, and he must have been hurt

or he wouldn’t have been there at all.

 

I think of him still sometimes

though it was years ago now.

I wonder now long it took

for him to die in terror.

 

All he wanted was

to go back home in Spring.