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56 Two Deer Coming out of the shed from fetching my son’s barbells—he’s moving and we command him to take them—I see two deer standing like Christmas decorations, like Christmas reindeer beneath the linden tree in the wintry light, in the mid-morning light. I want to be specific: this is perhaps the fourth sighting of deer here in twenty-two years. We raised our family, and even our son’s barbells are leaving, and the deer stood like a couple poised to move in or flee, depending. I just kept walking to see if the deer might be surprised by my not being surprised. They didn’t run this time. Again, they stepped away, visiting like forest gods, undoubtedly a sign: our daughter married, our son and his barbells moving to his own place, a couple of deer browsing 57 for a moment in the yard, naked as the day they first came together to make a family, Adam deer and Eve deer, departing silently, stepping with ballet shoes lightly through the brush between our yard and our neighbors’. ...

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