Speaking the Language of Deer by Martin Willitts Jr.

Speaking the Language of Deer

by Martin Willitts Jr.

She heard a thumping sound behind her house,
turned on the back porch light to
a small herd of deer
startled by the suddenness of light, frozen
and indecisive as a letter of regret

“don’t worry, it’s just me, I won’t harm you,”
she coaxed, a voice in light snowfall,

the deer, transfixed,
disbelieving in all things human
and unnatural

the darkness between, a division, an unsettling

of things beyond light and resolution,
assessing danger on the fly,

hindquarters enveloping into dark
slow as words,
determined as a Quaker weighting options
within the light, in silence

the woman in the household wondered
where they came from, which imaginary forest,
how they survived in the city
without encountering a car, how hooves
might feel on concrete after being in meadows,

why dark was a prevailing wind,
how their eyes remained after they were gone,

how her purse was genuine deerskin
how it fit everything in compartments
like she fit into apartments,

how she could still hear their refusal to stay

End of the poem

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Some external links:

The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave 

Talking Writing Monster.

Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US

Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe

Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).

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