Actual Animals
It’s not that the antlers pain, exactly,
budding from her forehead,
but they do in the first few weeks
feel raw,
and her gait
changes to accommodate
the weight of them,
so that she feels as if her head
is still turning after
it stops,
and there are doorways
to consider,
and other people’s eyes,
so that after a while
she stops coming inside,
and watches the house
from the edge of the woods,
thinking: those were my parents,
but now they are just people,
thinking once I slept there, and not
in a swirl of grass.
She remembers the last
boy she kissed longest
of all, but even that
goes with time
as her flank browns and dapples
and she grows elegant, tentative,
and dumb.
-
bird-teeth reblogged this from fawnflesh
-
seafoamwaltz reblogged this from fluttering-slips
-
littlegermantownbee liked this
-
fackeltanz liked this
-
dangatorium liked this
-
joshuarobertlong liked this
-
fluttering-slips posted this