Stag
by Samantha Davis
We’re going out tonight, and my friend is pre-gaming,
consuming the ruddy heart of a stag slowly,
ignoring the other’s shouts to hurry up.
She consumes it like sacrifice:
adrenaline-shaking and white, but afterwards
there’s a new brilliancy. She says she doesn’t need her coat.
She loses her shoes on the walk to the bar,
outpacing us all on cloven hooves to kick down the door.
Three drinks in and she skewers a man with her horns
for getting too close. The bouncer is afraid
but can’t do much. She buys everyone a shot of Jaegermeister,
licking hers clean with a long pink tongue.
She’s grown two more legs by the time we’re asked
to leave and forgets her tab, cantering off across traffic,
almost crashing a Ford F250. That was the last time I saw her
until yesterday, when she leapt into the road
outside town. I braked hard and just missed:
she nodded, then turned and bounded back into the forest.