cherry juice

Earlier this week I saw a small tabby cat by the side of the road with its face smashed off, and a half mile down the road a snake, filleted and flattened. And when I got home from work in the afternoon a grasshopper jumped out of my hair and onto the kitchen counter. The next day the cat was gone, and left behind was just a dry red puddle, a jagged star-shaped stain. It made me think of the cherry juice that stains my fingers during the summers and it made me want to be held.