Member-only story
The Death of a Midsummer Fawn
Free Verse
You should not lie
silent in a gash of headlights
now a jumble of white spots;
neither should your trembling mother be
wide-eyed with shock
standing over you —
No solace, just a horror show,
first row. You’ll get no sympathy
from this curving avenue where death
speeds by as cold as winter’s breath.
The world spins, green as ever
past one more fawn who ran
the length of carefree days,
now forever gone —
at home I make a call: on a busy road, I saw
a dying child, her stricken mom
might cause a wreck and nothing
nothing can be done. Shouldn’t someone come
and put her down?
I pull the curtain — headlights, pain, despair —
and recall the four I met when the day was new:
white dots bright against dark trees
livelier than sunlight skipping over water
who did not perish with their mother’s dreams.
