Mutualism

The deer I dream, pausing among the ossuaries.

There are roads that lead to birth.

Distance is a prey to the fire of criminal stars.

The return, an ark we climb towards nightly
(it has its angel, yes, but its angel is cruel).

I reached the city of fire at dawn, on a feast day

& my soul made a sound, just that once
(there are animals that only make
the sound they make once, at birth or at death).

Now the deer browse among dead languages.
There is nobody to teach them.

I wake the parable from its wreath of grasses,
I brush the frost away.

The deer don’t worship
because they are worship, somehow.
There is pain in this, but also great ecstasy
(chiefly in the leaping).

& my soul asked, where is my solitary leash.

I answer with the patience of a winter night
where my family has gathered
to bury something or someone (not me).

Pride of stars stepping from the east gate,
the deer keep their eyes down,
they recognize asylum.

I’m at home in the dream’s percussive shadow.

My silence stitches the beast
to the huntsman’s arm, the arm to the skull.
But of course I am the huntsman:

I sight the deer the way a lover
rises from a bed she’s shared, all silver vows

winnowing the craft from the moist woods,
provoking the solitary threshold

dusk has, just this once, so kindly overlooked.