Ben Cooper
In the Park next to the Wallows Concert
When it comes to roadkill, the eyes are first
to go. As if by design, the ears are left
intact, perhaps so I can feel slightly less
alone on this thick summer
night. The sunset already left us
to cool in the space between the chorus
and the verse. So here we are, just me
and this poor thing laying in the gutter
to my left, listening to the muffled voices leaking
through these cleverly placed pines. I also want to be
laying down, but don’t want anyone
to get the wrong idea. Maybe I should
just be grateful the flies have found something else
to call home. I’m worried the words won’t reach us
the same as the cicadas join the low rattle
this distance creates—all of us
emitting the heated chatter of atoms
in search of a shared frequency.
Ben Cooper is a poet and teacher studying creative writing at Salisbury University. He works as the Managing Editor at 149 Review and an Assistant Editor at Poet Lore. He is the winner of the 2025 AWP Intro Journals Award and his poetry is published or forthcoming in Colorado Review, Guernica, The Penn Review, The Shore, swamp pink, and more.