Salt Pool

By June, the road had shed its winter salt.
It pooled where the last plowbank came apart.
A moose came through the alder, heavy, slow,
its knees gone black with roadside mud.
The ditch held winter past its proper use.
Blackflies worked the air around its ears.
Trucks kept passing, dragging heat and grit.
The yellow sign kept its black moose still.
Below it, the real one moved through grass:
not warning, but breath and wet hide,
bent low to drink the road from the ditch
while engines passed close enough to hear.
What saved the curve called hunger to the shoulder.
The moose lowered its head. The highway did not slow.