The tender whitetail,  

a star-specked fawn, tries 

to ask me something with eyes 

dark as a lake at night, 

but I have no time for gentle things. 

Gentler still, moths papercut the yellow 

glare of the headlights, ease 

their twitching shadows over 

smooth swaths of sourwood. 

The engine of the pickup  

is a paper crane, smoke curling 

around its edges as from a dragon’s 

nostrils. I stand here (me, the deer, 

the truck) and taste the oil-slicked air, 

then approach. Peeking into the sticky 

darkness of the cabin, I feel as an astronaut 

must: the swelling reverence  

of sinking  

into a soft, black 

gut. Heady, floorless. Aether-spun. 

Sweetly, copper pennies flood 

my nose, undercut by a film of still fresh 

urine. The leathered bundle 

does not move. I reach in and brush the 

salt-stiffed hair away, and it whispers 

under my fingers like wild reeds  

in the wind. It’s not personal. I would have 

swam out into the lights of any bright 

eyes speeding my way. 

Crooking my chin  

towards a river of neck, 

I kiss first—not out of love,  

but to feel for the firm spurt 

of vein rising to meet  

my lips. Pine nettles wrinkle behind me.  

I raise my eyes to the quivering gaze  

of the yearling and feel the question 

aching out from its rib-carved 

frame. “Soon,” I answer, “you’ll learn that 

the only god is hunger.” 

I hold my hand out and let  

the fawn’s damp nose sniff  

a roadmap across my palm. 

“And there’s no tenderness 

in a set of teeth.”