Judy Kaber

Feast

Last week I saw a doe standing
still and staring at me in the middle

of the road.  Young, I thought, or
she would have known the risk,

understood the danger of hard
black tar, of looking too long into

the face behind the glass.  She stayed
until I inched my car forward and, even

then, she stepped slowly, pausing
at the edge, considering me, over

her sun-burnished shoulder.  I parked,
crossed the tar, as she walked

among the poplar and budded shrubs.
Foolish.  The word rippled through

my head like a stream. I pushed
between the bushes, my feet sinking

in mud-dead leaves, crossing slivers of
crystalized snow. The doe was gone,

but I continued, slapping aside
branches, easing past fallen lichen-

covered trunks. Moving. Moving
through dappled sun, moving through

the sting of birdsong.  Hungry, stomach
rumbling. While on my lips, the taste

of spring, pungent, sweet.

Back to Issue XIV…