Some Nights the Entire Gravel Driveway

is covered with fat orange slugs. Or frogs.

Or snails. You can't run to the car barefoot

for something left there. You can't step outside

to see the Milky Way splashed on the sky

without a flashlight. You have to look down

in the country. In the dark, you can slice

your foot open shattering a snail's shell

like my toddler daughter did. Forget all

squeamishness: worse things than stalked eyes and slime

are smeared across the night, waiting for you.

It's easy to kill without meaning to,

as easy as it is to die—always—

wherever you are—in the dark, a car,

the light— easy as the turn of a wheel—