FREADA DILLON was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida, and traveled throughout the southern U.S. while raising a family. She has lived and worked in Metro-Atlanta for almost 2 decades; during this time, she served on the staff of Habitat for Humanity, The Atlanta College of Art at Woodruff Arts Center and at the High Museum. Now a fulltime grandmother and poet, Freada is the Poetry Editor for Beginnings Publishing, Contributing Poetry Editor for Burning Word and Associate Editor of insolent rudder.

                                                     stephen king road kill
                                                   (or...squirrels in atlantis)


My return from the post office finds me in the big Ford 250, roaring down the last street before my cul-de-sac. A manic squirrel springs from sidewalk to mid-street in one leap, jitters indecisively, stares into the grill of what must look - to the squirrel - like Stephen King's worst nightmare: a sadistically grinning chrome grill bearing down upon him with fatal certainty. I cringe and grip the steering wheel. With no time to brake I fervently pray the tires will straddle him. A quick glance in the rearview mirror reveals no road kill: only a few errant leaves dropped early in the season. I stop, get out and walk to the back of the dented truck bed. Seeing nothing, I look on lawns both right and left, then do a creaky, squat-and-bend, to peek under the high-riding shock-sprung 2-ton. Hmmm…. Nothing. It's as though the critter vanished, or was never there at all. As I reclaim my place in the driver’s seat, my mind latches on to the image of falling debris on the freeway that was so graphically described by King, from the novel I was up till 3 am finishing. Rattling my head to clear the images, I think: better stick to poetry tonight.

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Copyright © 2003 Freada Dillon