[Eleanor]: 668.Poetry.Ode to a Deer Skull

          Ode to a Deer Skull

This bone is scoured clean,
the sutures where one plate meets another
are undulating lines,
matching up like the erose edges
of jigsaw puzzle pieces,
meandering like streams flowing
across flat landscapes,
undermining and cutting the soil
to leave switchbacks and ess-curves.
There are no oxbows,
these are not rivers.

The sockets where the eyes once dwelt
are like gaping mouths of subterranean tunnels
sloping inward. The eyes are gone,
the windows shattered, the soul fled.
The antlers are double-tined prongs
curving towards each other.
I imagine in life arcs of thought
leapt from one to the other
like sparks of energy generated
by a Tesla-inspired machine.
But now they are merely bone,
dead, lifeless bone,
a leftover reminder of rutting
and sex and a bid for power
and dominance.

* * *

Who were you, deer, whose skull
now sits atop this pedestal?
Did you run free through the woods,
nibble daintily at the windfall apples
in the farmer’s orchard?
Did you frolic in the moonlight?
Did you have a mate?
Were you racing to meet her
when the truck slammed into you,
ending your brief life,
extinguishing the light in those liquid eyes,
breaking the enclosure where dwelt your soul
so that it continued on its way
across the road and into the field beyond
while you were left behind
in a pool of blood and matted fur?