More from 42 Opus
WHEN I FIRST SEE THE DEAD DEER
When I first see the dead deer, I think
Hope and Remembrance.
It's not the cluster of pinks I'd wanted,
not the first sight of the first crocus,
but a bouquet nonetheless.
Touching the furred foreleg where it juts
from the broken ribcage, it's
how perfectly still the leg lies, and
what a strange arrangement— how like a stem
it is for the whorl of bones and hair,
just uncovered by the melting snow.
Later, when I smell it on my hands,
I touched a man in love, and
what strange confessions the dead make.
Look how the blooms lie frozen still,
in the not-quite spring, in the shapes
of tubers, rhizomes, bones.
© Mary Walker Graham 2007
When I first see the dead deer, I think
Hope and Remembrance.
It's not the cluster of pinks I'd wanted,
not the first sight of the first crocus,
but a bouquet nonetheless.
Touching the furred foreleg where it juts
from the broken ribcage, it's
how perfectly still the leg lies, and
what a strange arrangement— how like a stem
it is for the whorl of bones and hair,
just uncovered by the melting snow.
Later, when I smell it on my hands,
I touched a man in love, and
what strange confessions the dead make.
Look how the blooms lie frozen still,
in the not-quite spring, in the shapes
of tubers, rhizomes, bones.
© Mary Walker Graham 2007
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