how the hail is crashing down
on I-93 as the Subaru ahead
swerves into a panicked deer.
You died less than an hour ago,
the hospital lights still peering
through treetops in my rearview.
You were meant to die yesterday,
so all through tonight you were
dying more fiercely than ever.
Now red lights catch the stones
and the road glows. Steam rising
from the asphalt. The driver’s out
and staring at the half-dead deer
drag itself toward the woods: antlers
full-grown with branching tines shed
as he drops, face screwed up then turns
away. I want to go to the deer and
watch it pant its last haze of breath.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 4.
Sarah Anne Stinnett teaches at Berklee Online and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and an ALM in Dramatic Arts from Harvard University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Plume, Palette Poetry, On the Seawall, The Shore, Barely South Review, Summerset Review, Red Letter, and elsewhere.
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