Pedestrian

In September, the mother down the blockloses her childat the same time the hunters come to town.Twenty deer in the woods, foam roundingover the spillway. And the smoke sucks in like teeth,each belly open into wound,salted by the earth and then the table.What gives, what takes, bullfrogs bloated with pebblesby the side of the road,no word for the sound of the loss of sound,mother's truck over daughter's body,each vessel bursting like a seed,and in the distance the antlers stack into towers.The small shoe still there, lodged in the grille,a fish in a net,a doe sewn into a river.No word for waking into a lifein which you took your own child's away.