Deer tails on the wooded slope flicker like a woman’s hands
shaking off water. Crows sentry the yard.
Threading its red body around the shed, a fox slips down
an invisible sleeve—a magic trick.
The horse with a lilac mane I dreamt last night browses
spring’s thin grass. Her cream body
splotched as if with mold. She flinches, her belly a shoreline.
Come home, I say, for the last time
to the one person who can’t. My name a lychee in my mouth,
unfamiliar yet sweet.
The deer drown in the forest’s camouflage. Barefoot
as sunlight, I approach the horse.
It shakes its mane. Its whinny rinses the air.
The crows open their capes
like mouths and their mouths, glinting, drop
wet oracles on the ground.
