Muse #4:  The Deer

Frannie Z

 

At the Game Farm,

a young deer

grabbed hold

of my mom’s skirt

and worried it

with her teeth,

thinking my mom

some large print-embossed

flower.

 

Forty years later,

after she died,

two male deer

crashed into our yard

in autumn rutting season.

 

Then, in May,

a fawn

tiptoed under

the neighbor’s hedge

and crossed

over a fallen tree.

She stood,

fearless,

until we inched

the camera out.

 

Then she fled.