Going to Daycare

A true story with no anti-animal intentions, true and purposefully jarrish.

A light blue minivan speeding around a curve
in the old one nine.
Boy of four, playing with his pop-tart, sits shotgun.
Squirming in duplicate car seats
a pair of twin girls in back. Carpet,
littered with crumbs of past fast breakfasts,
juttering with the road, trapped.
Mother terrified, shoots eyes back
to her screaming girls, as Bambi’s
hooves shatter the window to their right.
Bawling deer obscenities, guttural screams of baritone,
as her midsection becomes stuck and her tail
end thickly whips in effort to come free.
A crying choir now, the kids look to mom,
their newest member, slamming on
the brakes. Bambi—taken by physics—arcs
and bounces off the road with the sound of a
heavy leather bag, full. A panting family
watching Bambi’s last collapse and final
struggle, down at the curve in the old one nine.