Chickamauga

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CHICKAMAUGA


—  a small town in North Georgia, or

             Cherokee for ‘dwelling-place by the big water’


Gracie found the fawn dewed-over 

in the field, who in the summer had tried


his wet nose to June’s first, small windfall 

beneath the apple tree. His mother left him 


when I crept closer to see. Last week 

they pulled a toddler from the creek downtown, 


facedown. Try as I might, the fawn's weight

in my hands was heavier to me. 


After the burial we biked the battle-

field, rubber tread crunching brittle dead


of September. As the news makes clear, far

more than deer explode like old apples on the barrel


of a baseball bat somewhere overseas. 

I don’t know what to make of that, since


this evening, in that very same world,

woodsmoke smells like what we hoped to say


and our daughters pray for their hair done

in pink rubber-bands. Is there a thread?


We look for words, then suddenly we’re said,

too tangled in it to pick out the strands.


Sometimes, when it starts to feel a bit tight in here,

some of us slip out to stare across the big water.


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