Here, now, gone

We’re standing in the road

looking at a dead fawn. His truck facing town,

mine headed toward home. It appears to be sleeping

on the double yellow, curled as if in tall grass

or on a down comforter in a video someone has posted

on YouTube about her pet deer. No sign of collision

or gunshot, garroting, heart attack: nothing but spots,

cuteness. The name on his door means he works

on the natural gas pipeline that’ll run

from West Virginia to North Carolina.

The company that pays him has a reputation for ruin

worse than syphilis. Employees have been told

to stay away from locals. They stick to a hotel

near the freeway with a decor I’d call modern roach,

drink there, hone boredom, look at stars.

We both crouch to make sure the fawn is dead.

“What the fuck,” he says, staring at the desert

of my face, where there’s no rain or hope,

only cactus, as I search the dry lake-bed of his.

He looks back at the fawn, brings his hands together

as if waiting for a Communion host,

makes a scooping motion with his hands,

then slides his eyes to the side of the road:

I’m being asked to help save a dead fawn

from the bonus carnage of traffic, the shredding

that suggests life isn’t just delicate

but deserves to be erased.

We are the briefest couple

joined by common cause, move the fawn

and stand briefly as men who have respected loss

for sentimental reasons. Then nod, become ghosts

of a moment we are the custodians of, holders

of the unholdable, wind telling the story of itself

to itself.