Deer Stand
By Eben Lee Thomas
Five deer tense in dense bright air
of backyard hung between full moon
and snow-pack. The short-horned buck stares
at road, at dry-line, at house, and I in my room,
stare back. Their shadows stick close as fawns –
the collapse of snow through thin window
sounds their passing. Deer route is regular, from back of lawn
to bird feeder, then brush pile, then south across road
towards well-hidden bowers. Their silhouettes will go with the snow
– brown bodies blending blank against dirt and clover,
unseen even by the moon. Soon only by evidence known,
as year wheel turns and rescinds winter’s bare candor.
Just hoof-cuts carved quick in spring’s slick mud,
and hunter-lure mineral block licked down to a nub.
Eben Lee Thomas is a poet living in Maine. His work has appeared in The Words Faire, The Monster Beauties anthology, and is forthcoming in The Canopy Review. He writes about animals, sometimes human ones.
