A white Ford, black gate, Georgia plate,
squeezes into our lane. In the back, a Whitetail –

tagged and slashed from her chest to hind legs –
looks back at us. Her eyes a dark glass.

Opening day for deer hunting. Cars pass
and pass.  In a field, lightning bugs darted

and flashed in your hand. Half-girl, half-doe,
you started and stopped, palms cupped.

Someone carried you off and we cheered
for the boy in the clay, his heel on home plate.

It was a beautiful steal.  
Did he thank the deer for her head

when he knelt above her? When he
opened her middle to empty inedible parts?

When, for a clean job, he severed her windpipe
and – hunter’s nectar – he saved her heart?