When the deer dies alone
by Taylor Stafford
its stomach spills over—handful
of cherry seeds, gleam in its eyes reaching
but the body is not a body
a mother holds
The car keeps moving, wings
explode into the air like an air
conditioner turning on at night
sounds like hands shuffling cards
This death doesn’t sound like anything
it is not the kind of death people stop
to place a blanket over, or bury under
the tree in someone’s backyard
it looks like a bodiless jacket,
half-zipped and lit from the sun, on the part
where an arm should be
The deer does not get to be a ghost the way you are
When death swallowed you whole,
you were not
in the throat of a road or the saliva
of a sea, you were
kisses on the palm
before
I put them in my pocket
My keychain echoes down the hall
with your navy-blue name tag that reads Abigail
sounds like your collar coming alive
all over again
About the Author
Taylor is a graduate of Texas State University.