They’re out there now,
careening across frost-
hard fields, springing
onto roads like Olympic
gymnasts—so many
accidents waiting.
On my way to you
(we only have the night),
I watch for them—
the deer—brown sliver
skimming pines, white tuft
of flicking tail in twilight.
In the parlance
of hunters, it’s the peak
of the rut, when a doe,
I’m told, will sometimes
abandon her young
to breed again. Envy
the freedom. The no-thought-
to-consequences-of it.
But selfish is what I said
the day my neighbor
sent her girls to school,
then left for Texas
with her lover. No one
suspected, least of all
her witless husband.
Still, the signs
had been there: her sudden
weight loss (desire thins),
her new job (mere pretext).
And her children?
I can’t stand
looking at them anymore,
their moon-blank
faces at the bus stop.
What could they know
of the body, how it goes
where it must? I’m close
to you now—about to turn
when I’m head-on
with the doe—she’s running
straight into my lights.
And I can see it
in the wet glint of her
dark eye—that wild
hunger—before she’s gone
so quickly I wonder
if I’d seen her at all. Or,
if anything could stop her.
