I Am Deer by Kelly Schrock

It’s too foggy to ride this morning, but I look at my car and see oil terminals, broken land, Nigerians lamenting poisoned water tables, and so I get on my bike. People seem impressed by my fortitude, my commitment. Maybe they file me under crazy or at least pleasantly eccentric. They don’t understand the relief of fresh air, condensation under the nose, startled cry of killdeer in the untouched morning hours after so long spent stuffed in central heated windowless florescent nightmare.

White light slices through foggy slumbering morning, too close. Deer hooves clip clop on asphalt. I feel her move across crystallized grass. Light rips apart fog; bike no longer beneath me. Breath draws sharp, metal screams, is that me is that me? The deer watches from trees, watches red light shrink and fade and wink out. Somewhere, moaning like a baby, building up to a good cry. Mother where are you? I can’t move. Deer watches as I becomes BODY through sublimation of blood on road bones twisted bike frame lungs and bowels empty. Cool wet nose presses pale flesh; pink tongue tastes salt. Where are you where are you? Light blooms. Rubber hisses on road, but no one stops. Why would anyone stop for crippled dying animal?

Just pass it by honey; it’s going to die anyway.

I am deer.

I am deer

I am

© 2014 Kelly Schrock

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