"...there was
a child went forth every day;
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and the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;” ~
Walt Whitman
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there is a deer in me
so I am told
doe eyes, moist and wide
tender listening
eyes
alert, yet often avert
acquaintance
a fragile fawn
curled in a spotted
C
along the edge
of a forest-lined
road
there is a deer in me
of spindly grace,
innocent
so I am told
by a woman long ago
who caught me in her lusty headlights
a stark and raucous
invasion
a barbed wire intrusion
on my leafy
moon-lit life
she insisted I expose a downy side
my underbelly to
her, for her
to spy, to pet, to own, but she
could not perceive
there is a deer in me
only to be verged
upon
with open palm and cautious step
only a wish for
possibility
of a nuzzle. She did
not distinguish
she could not see
the deer in me
wary and alarmed
vigilant as the
antlered buck
who knows exactly when to retreat.
