Awake to My Mortality

A deep awareness of my own mortality has run me over.
It came out of nowhere,
Leaving me no different than a half squashed lizard
Out on a desert highway.
My front legs and my vanity still try to go along
As if nothing is wrong
But I’ve lost my youthful invincibility.
It’s as useless as my tattered tail
Stuck to the splattered streak
Running down the road.

My eyes roll around every which way
Looking for an end that I know is coming.
With the dark sky cupping the horizon,
The deep truth of my aloneness glares at me.

Then a coyote’s call, far too close.

I find myself with no way to run
From the realization
That I exist
But only as briefly
As the passing of a dry breeze
Retreating before the coming rain.