Flea Circus

How appropriate, driving back to Quiet Cove
through fields of alfalfa and corn, to stop
for a nervous young buck in the road—antlers
still a single story, dappled flanks bronze
with sunfall, eyes black, body trembling.

The Civic shakes as I wave out the window,
Go on, and he bounds into high stalks—
a doe suddenly leaping after him into rocking
green, yellow. I wish you were here, Sarah,
but this dusk you're an idea traveling to Belize

as hawks and turkey vultures stitch this sky
with dark wings and the earth is bone-dry—
the dumb corn, tall and unsteady. I've lost
something that wanted to get lost. Sometimes,
I lift empty chairs over my head like a strong man.