First Movie: Bambi, 1975

They tell you it’s going to be dark in there
and the mother’s going to die.
Dark in there and empty, like a cave. What’s
a cave even like—you’ve never been—
but it must feel grayer than this dark
which is almost red like you inside, pulsing
then cracked with unthinkable light.
It’s all true: you taste a salt you can’t at home,
sip ice you can’t see, and the woods
here are soft and glossy, don’t hurt
your feet. The deer need your eyes
and you want to touch them but can’t,
just like the ones inside you.
And your mother’s here, in the next seat.
She smells like the dark of her purse: stiff Kleenex and Certs.
And when the fire comes wild across the wall she’s still here,
her loose coat-sleeve scratching your wrist and her breath
beside you moving in and out
as it will for some unpromised time, warmer
than the walk out into the cement sun
and the station wagon’s hum, the long ride home.