Impact
by Clara Chiuafter Hozier and Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2 am: I drop to the curb wrung
out spilling secrets to strangers,
guts strewn, a deer turned roadkill.
My headlights flicker: on: off
the record I dial 9——
A man whose voice rings of distance
teaches me the steps for grief:
1) if the deer has grown cold slide her body
into a river
2) else: repeat 1)
Under our coats: my hand, warm.
I cannot abandon her,
this streak of surrender on asphalt.
I wait: back behind the wheel, as though
in the aftermath of braking,
I can still stop before I reach
the present moment.
Centuries pass; invert themselves.
A knock: on
the car door —
it’s the deer, still warm:
admits she’s scared of the river,
doesn’t want to suffocate
a second time.
But those years of waiting have shown us
the miraculous things that happen
just by holding still.
How we’ve found our bodies older
than we left them, meaning
we tried a little longer.
Listen: we’ll sit together by the curb, grow
acquainted with the rain
until the river becomes
a meeting place of old friends.
Then, warm under our coat, we’ll step into the current;
let that private terror awaken
something greater.