This poem originally appeared in Pomme Journal, issue 1 (2019)
~
Wild Animals Running Away
May 18th, Bandit Bay, New Braunfels TX
If I could send this letter, dear Amelia, I’d say what I saw
when I walked the links last night at dusk. Three
red-tailed hawks. Two swooped close and disappeared
into treetops. The third perched high, to scan
the eleventh hole, before it soared into the marsh.
A pair of rabbits, their white tails puffed, slinked
beneath the split-rail fence at woods’ edge. Slow wings
whooshed to lift a heron from the creek, its body the blue
of twilight. And five deer, nibbling someone’s rosebuds.
Their hooves hissed across the street and went silent
on the golf course. Last year I could call to share
these stories of wildlife without subtext. Now
all I can do is write them here but never send them,
never say how in every case I thought of you, my dear,
whom I had no intention of harming, who ran
from me anyway. I suppose animals know
best, know human nature has its danger, and truly
I’m blessed just to bear witness when I’m far
from home. On tonight’s trek, I saw two deer, each
safe with its mate, and veered off the fairway, to pose
no threat. They stood on a par-five green, heads
trained my way, and never fled for the woods
so near. As my thoughts homed in on you, I struck off
into the rough. Best leave well enough alone.
~
Marisa P. Clark
Marisa P. Clark is a queer writer whose prose and poetry appear or are forthcoming in Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Epiphany, Foglifter, Free State Review, Rust + Moth, Texas Review, Sundog Lit, and elsewhere. Best American Essays 2011 recognized her creative nonfiction among its Notable Essays. A fiction reader for New England Review, she hails from the South and lives in the Southwest with three parrots, two dogs, and whatever wildlife and strays stop to visit.