Visitor

Visitor

Word has grazed among the deer

that July at last has sheared the split ends

of the crabapple next to the trampoline, 

and in lean packs of three or four they come

like ghosts to make amends for long weeks

of this heat. Tonight, though, just one 

comes doeing from the federal protection 

of the Chickamauga battlefield, slipping between

lightning-bug blinks in steps light

as bird-thought or that pine-scented secret

the dead whisper amongst themselves.

Hush: this is the closest we’ll get

on our side of the screened-in 

porch to the word that means the musk of being

here, that phantom tick itching us 

mad enough to jump our apportioned pasture

for a chance at that sour-sweet crunch.