Morning Highway

Snaking down Albion’s
grey asphalt spine
red rags swim
a stillborn sky,
scattershot victims,
aftermath
in the blink of an eye
witness to the impassive
downcast vault
above.

Around me?
The quick, the quicker
and the cadaverous,
collateral
of that murderous dark,
garnish the mortiferous blacktop.

A charnel feast
for inky pinioned
barnstorming beaks
to swoop and dip
and flee
that they too
don’t form part
of that mortal stew.