Rounding the curve near Ellicot City

another raccoon dead, his tail raised high

like a flagpole. Or was she a woman,

striped our sister, trying to reach Oella

which never changes? And did we charge,

my daughters and I, around the bend,

an army of fearless women wrapped in tin?

And does her tail, silent and stiff, signal Danger?

We feel around us, in Ellicot City, the accusation

of a forest of patchy eyes.

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