DEER, DECEMBER
One of thirty nights I can’t sleep
I awaken to motion in the last dark
out the window, tight against the hillside.
I put on my glasses to stop
the glass in the old house from wavering.
Three of them, maybe twenty feet away,
they nuzzle new snow,
leaves and twigs not yet frozen hard,
a poor diet, winter just begun.
Foraging, chewing, staring lines into space.
Their necks bolt upright only to the slight
shift in what I imagine is wind,
to things I can’t hear, couldn’t,
were I with them outside and not still
warm on the edge of the bed
Then a cardinal is winter
red against the even gray of 6 a.m.
—cloudy, this time of year. I’ll stay watching
until I’m late for another morning meeting,
my alarm clock not gone off—that must be it.
I can’t know how little I’ll be missed.