Underbelly

by Kim Groninga

The black kitten dead in the road
had the silhouette a child would draw —
a circle and two triangles.

The squirrel my daughter found,
half–paralyzed and dragging his body,
had a white belly like a frog.
All fragile things are frogs.

The house down the road
where two dogs almost died in a fire

has been boarded up all summer.
I remember their tails finally flicking
every time I walk by. We saw the shadow
of their movement on the smoking house —
dark against blue and red lights circling.

The girl raccoon
fought harder to escape us
but she is the one who died in the end.
We could have kept her warmer.
We didn’t know.

The crash–and–burn fledgling rescued
before a lawn mowing
ate some chopped earthworms
from the rehabber (who apologized to the worms)
and returned to his neighborhood
to try to find his mom.

The lobster tank at HyVee
has been empty since the 4th of July.
And the beetle kindly righted in aerobics class
was quickly stomped on by another participant.

Scooter, an old–man beagle,
lost his young–man human
and will live out his days
as desk mascot for a quiet, rural shelter.