DEER CROSSING

  by Cappy Love Hanson



They come to cross the two-lane 
under the bull roar of nighthawk wings, 
a setting crescent moon, and swarms 
of moths and stars:  a mule deer, 
fawn coiled in her belly like a spring, 
doe yearling pressed against her,
shoulder to ribs and flank to flank.

Dead-looking ocotillo stalks sprout 
iridescent velvet, tipped with blooms 
like whipped flames.  From across 
the highway, the breeze allures 
with scents of stock tanks, of grass 
rising green and greedy 
around windmills’ leaky plumbing.  

The three-strand barbed wire fence 
is nothing, a frisky leap.  Prick-eared 
on the verge, the deer wait 
while a container carrier rumbles by.  
Its hot-rubber-and-diesel stench 
stings their noses; its wind wake 
whips their fur.

Nose-to-tail behind her mother, 
the yearling is half across the near lane
when another truck crests the curve.
All predatory roar and metallic slam, 
it cleaves between them, hurls each doe 
to her own gritty dying ground.

In the morning, ants newly risen 
from winter chambers ascend 
the broken faces for the fluids 
of nostrils, eyes, and lolled tongues.  
Vultures wing in for viscera.  Coyotes 
crunch the leg bones, birth 
the frantic fawn by toothed Cesarean.  

Death’s appeared and vanished 
in a cervid heartbeat, its handmaidens 
in a day.  Every element grabs its share, 
as wind makes off with the last scraps 
of gray-gold hide, and all that lingers
on the highway are blood stains,
seeping, drying, bleaching.