Deer Tracks

By Alexis Ragan

Quiet: If you hold your breath from beating,

there’s a panting in the woods. 

How long has the herd yearned for quenching

more than antlers and hooves? Were just as 

parched as the doe dry with sorrow, using mist for 

offspring drinks in between waves of mass migration. 

Thirsty snouts scrape below the bush and weep: 

              “The World’s Gone Dry”

Until the fawn came back damp that day gauzed from 

the spinney, dew dropped in the glassy ponds of her 

footprints now hydrating the herd to pick up and move.

At this point it feels like we're following deer tracks.

They stopped, so they’re sleeping, so maybe we should

rest too. On a sheet of tough silk laid down from our

tears, the trunk of tears I gathered for us to sleep on,

the fabric feels dry, like a heaving throat roped in hot air,

I could have sworn it fell from my eyes already solidified. 

There is one thing: an occasional gust likes to whisper light 

down our spines in the times of precipitation, preaching:

 In exile → float on → in exile → float on  

And sometimes when the rain claps like a baby rattle 

in the hand of a child who begins to think their mother 

won’t return – fast and anarchic and fatally blue – fig 

branches bend backwards, making arches that match

the curve in the back of a lady dancing all on her own.

A breeze brushed against my bare nape: 

aqueous, silky, smooth, singing how 

the well of sweet water waits near. 

We followed the tracks to the top of the hill. 

And never went thirsty again.