"A Dead Stag, With Sketched Figures of a Ghillie and Hounds" by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Circa 1830
While we are gone,
our neighbor finds
a long-dead buck in our shed,
steeped in snow and wood.
A broken leg took him down
and he found refuge.
The deer that had wandered the hills,
had run in front of a car.
This is the story we make up to
understand how he got there.
It’s sad, the part about dying.
It scares us, we want to turn
our faces away, drag the deer
back to the forest.
But there is something else
we should look at-
a small gladness that he found
shelter close to our house,
that he came out of the wind and snow
to curl up near the wood pile.
All deer die.
This one is a testament.
"In the Shed" by Mary Logue, from Meticulous Attachment. © Mid-List Press, 2005.
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