Grant Clauser

Deer Morning

It cleared the boxwood hedge and landed
feet from my hound dog frozen
at the sight of the rut-crazed buck—
six sharp points and broad-chested
like a king’s stag from the old country.
And there they stood, both unsure
what move to make next, and I 
at the glass door, nervous and awed.
Sun clawing through the neighbor’s
pines until a November gust shook 
the tall trees, breaking the collective
spell. It sprang past my wilted autumn
garden, away from yard and dog 
and toward the two-lined road 
where traffic stopped to watch 
some rare magnificence
escape into broken cornfields
between houses rising from trenches 
and the world waking again and again
into the shock of loss, how quickly 
we come to forget it. 

Back to Issue XIV…