Compulsion
Liz Lampman
Here, another crossing. The fawn that enters
has no fear. I have no word for the kind of want
that is shaped like dread. Her ears swivel the sky
into thin ropes. Watch her weave the world, a brief
kingdom. With time, she will swell and the white spots
spill to night’s thick grass. Someday, Andrew's leap
over the fence to steal from the wood pile pine for the fire
will recede beyond memory. His ink eyes will become
a carcass, then ash. Someday I will be proud and forgetful.
Marble is really limestone melting back into the sea.
Next spring, I will become the yearling, my steps not yet
deliberate. Dread amidst the tangy clover. Danger
shaped like an empty meadow. Like the blade of his spine
when I held him against my hollow chest.