Shed-antler

Shed-antler


White-tail ghost eyes,
You ask me to be a sentinel
in my time
on winding back roads.
It is dusk.
I am watching for you,
hesitating
at all the turns.

I once found in Montana,
a talisman of your kind
lodged in a ridge,
forgotten.

Yes, lodged in a ridge
like the bend of a knee.

The stand of poplar trees was
chanting.
Then,
barely audible,
the words “shed-antler”
grazed the back of my neck.

White-tail ghost eyes,
I’ve known your gentle
heart
all of my life.
When I die and go to heaven
I will ride you.
Together
we can pass
into the great leaping beyonds
of ourselves.
I will be free with you.

Then headlights scream:
Maybe my hopes are too slender, too brittle
like your legs.
Maybe my heart parts in two
like your hooves.
Maybe I am hard cut bone
like your antler.

Is that you there
in the ditch?

My White-tail ghost eyes,
I always see you on walls
betrayed martyred pious
your expression is not angry,
and I cannot pity
your rigid stare.

Tonight
just clear my car in one Olympic vault.
See your lover
on the other side
waiting for you
in the next alfalfa field,
blinking out her devotion.