A deer and his family

You know the world has gone rotten

when deer begin to speak from the banks of the road.

I tried to run past them

but their voices, which are whispery and subtle like their movements,

called me to turn back.

I had no choice; I thought I was in a dream.

In my dreams I always listen to the deer.

You understand that I knelt in the pavement and put my head

to the deer’s white throat.

I bent in close, the way it wanted.

Its voice was thick in the way of gravy, scratchy and swollen

like newly paved road.

I asked it what it wanted to say. The deer said,

Look at me.

So I did. The deer’s eyes were two widely-spaced

darkly-caressing spheres.

I wondered why I hadn’t looked into deers’ eyes before.

The deer said, Look behind me.

I looked behind him and saw, huddled at his back,

his family, with the same black eyes and speckly white throats.

And behind them I saw an open space

of sad brown dirt and tombstones of bark.

Do you know where the woods went? whispered the deer.

I don’t know, I said after a moment.

And I just want to tell you

that the deer and his family were already a dream.