My mother made herself the deer with a broken leg
We saw a deer through the pane into someone else’s yard.
The leg moved like a tube sock pinned to the hip
and half filled with sticks. I did not like to see it suffer,
either. She was upset —my mother —that no one helped
the doe. Was it a mother, too? As if we were the first
to observe the scene. We weren’t. All had been told to
let her be. My mother had suffered a destruction
of the self, a divorce, and no one cared. That wasn’t true.
We were grown, on our own. I agree it was hard. Yet
in those moments of a cold November day, we watched
a doe, disabled and enduring, walk across a yard and eat
a hedge. I wish she could have seen it like that.
Amy Holman is the author of the collection, Wrens Fly Through This Opened Window (Somondoco Press, 2010) and four chapbooks, including the prizewinning Wait for Me, I’m Gone (Dream Horse Press, 2005). Recent poems have been in or accepted by Blueline, concis, Gargoyle, The Westchester Revie…
great draft. i would only tinker a bit if at all. ending is fabulous. the only line where the meter seems a tad off is '...basin you catch it in'. also couldn't tell if that line break was intentional or due to formatting. or is that some kind of concrete and intentional break? at any, rate, that little bit stuck in my craw. otherwise, the whole scans fine for me. 'cease and decyst' is a little cute based on the other lines, but i can live with it. i wonder if that phrase can be hinted at using the same sounds with its explicit usage? just my two cents. ignore as necessary.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gerry. I appreciate you reading this. I wanted the stark two-letter line, but now I dunno. . .
ReplyDelete