The Opossum

In Bilimora, India, on the road of corn-huskers
and slaughterhouses: a blind man tapped his cane
on the mango grove clay and remarked,
“You’d be lucky if you ever saw an opossum
with three legs.” Pressing his cane
into the paw prints in the ground, he said,
“Make a wish, before it’s too late.”

Beside him, in an oil drum, the curled-up opossum
I mistook for a crumpled rag, cringed.
Grease striped its fur. To make my wish,
I held my breath: a biker wheeled by,
clunking a log against the barrel
as if he were the town crier announcing
that my wish wouldn’t come true.