Chickamauga

CHICKAMAUGA

—  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 spooked

and left him when I crept closer to see. Last week

they pulled a toddler from the creek downtown, 

facedown. Odd that the deer's weight

in my hands was heavier to me, his stiff body

more real as we shoveled him under the oak

tree. After the burial we biked the battle-

field, rubber tread crunching brittle dead

of November. As the news makes clear, far

more than deer explode like old apples on the barrel

of a baseball bat somewhere overseas. 

Who knows what to make of that, since

this evening, in that very same world,

woodsmoke smells like what we had hoped

to say and our daughters pray for their hair done

in pink rubber-bands. Is there a thread?

We look for words till suddenly we’re said,

too tangled in it to pick out the strands.

Sometimes, when the smoke in here sits

extra thick, some of us slip out to stare

across the big water.