Captain Kangaroo

At first, I thought the dreaded side effects
Of my anti-depressants have finally kicked in:
Blurred vision; hallucinations, etc.
On the roadside of Route 17, just past
The Elmira exit, I saw a giant kangaroo,
Pouch and all, spread motionless on the ground.

Pulling over was automatic; getting out of the car
Took some time: what would the good people,
Passing by in their zooming cars think of me?
As I got close enough to see the wrinkles around
His shut eyes; his lean paws and his now dusty tail,
A thought that this had to be a prank, had hit me.

I mentally prepared myself for the next moment:
A whole bunch of people with cameras, clapping,
The kangaroo miraculously coming to life,
Transforming into a sweaty guy, anxiously unzipping
His costume, smiling kindly, at my expense.
I have become one of these good-natured idiots.

But nothing happened. Not a soul in sight,
Just more and more cars, speeding home,
As the blissful five o’clock of a Friday arrived.
A funny thing occurred to me then: I pictured a circus
Caravan, on their way to the next performance, losing
The animal, without realizing it: a loose door in a trailer.

And I suddenly remembered an old road-kill poem of
Gerald Stern’s: in it, the guy picks up the dead
Possum; or thinks about it; I can’t recall exactly.
I had no such courage, and didn’t know what to do.
So I sat down on the ground, which was warm and dry
On a rare sunny afternoon in upstate New York, and lit up.

We must’ve been there for an hour, or three, or five:
A man, smoking;
A Kangaroo, still dead;
Just outside of Elmira.