Forget the Sunday Morning Deer
for Al Stewart
Forget your Sunday morning deer
and the rest of the week deer as well.
If they kept to their deer meadow
we would be delirious.
Instead they forage my beans and lettuce,
chomp their way through kale and spinach,
gobble impatiens and budding hosta leaves,
feast on my rosebuds before they even open,
kick apart the stone wall
we so carefully built of river slate,
send their best athletes to scale
the ever rising wire fences.
One day I expect to see them
dancing among the sweet potato vines,
martini glasses in their hooves,
lamp shades dangling antlers,
gorging and munching their cocktail hour
until we run screaming back to the city,
letting the mulched and fertile ground
drift back to wild in triumph.
REINVENTION
Like a death
she has left it
all behind
the owl sermon
and dandelion kingdom
the trail heart
and rose sputtered sky
even the sunflower
heavy in its season
gossips her absence
trading nature's gifts
for asphalt and siren
the glass and brick frankensteins
men have created
that rise to challenge
her familiar stars
leaving the hummingbird ease
for the energy
of stop and go
of city babble and curb end
not like the rivers and creeks
that never stop
that aren't daunted by rock slide
or beaver manor
but maybe the sun
some hot dry summer
now her nights chatter
the blues and jazz
of a hungry life
even the distant train
has lost its sad remark
sounding more like
the howl of desire
she no longer feeds
on the abstract air
the gentle wash of light
or whisper among meadow grass
she has become concrete
wheel
arrow
fire
Allison Thorpe has published one book of poetry and one chapbook. Recent appearances include The Citron Review, Naugatuck River Review, Trickster, Snail Mail Review, Front Range Review, Freshwater, Clapboard House, Lingerpost, and seeking its own level: an anthology of writings about water. She is working on her first novel.