Honorable Mention for the 2018 Furrow Prize for Poetry
By Amanda Hodes
Sometimes even the birds get confused
by the moon, or maybe they just already knew.
Either way, morning-dusk always sounds
like hermit thrush and cicadas.
Back then, Kaitlyn and I would wake
before the blue-blonde dawn to walk
by the pastures down the road
and feed the goats without getting caught.
But this time when we reached
the end of the white fence, we could smell it:
the deer bloated and wide-eyed
as we were, struck on the pavement,
white tufts still showing on its crusted back.
Kaitlyn didn’t move. Just turned, barley grain limp
in hand, and walked home. Over breakfast,
we bird-danced around it, twittering
a swallowed language. We forgot how
to talk, glanced our eyes at the apron,
the fridge magnets, the apple border
around our plates. And, how our hearts clung
like bird’s feet on the telephone wire,
afraid to look down.
