THE FAWN
A friend found a wounded fawn
on the road back of where he lives.
Unleashed, his Jack Russell terrier
lit into it, its broken forelegs
folding wrong in the loose gravel.
It cried out, he told me, in a human voice.
His girlfriend dragged the dog away,
leaving Lee alone with the fawn.
It couldn't stand but in its eyes,
he said, he saw the peace of all
pardoned things. "He was so beautiful,
Austin. His eyelashes were this long."
My friend has big hands, he plays bass.
He spread his thumb and index finger
wide apart. I nodded and said I could
just see them. We shook our heads
and drank to beauty so beyond us.
I wanted that to be the end of the story,
Lee sitting there in the road, holding
the fawn in his lap. It got quiet
in the bar. The story had to go on.
"I couldn't shoot him," he said.
"He was too beautiful to shoot.
I picked him up and carried him
down to the pond." "And then?"
"And then we walked into the water."
A friend found a wounded fawn
on the road back of where he lives.
Unleashed, his Jack Russell terrier
lit into it, its broken forelegs
folding wrong in the loose gravel.
It cried out, he told me, in a human voice.
His girlfriend dragged the dog away,
leaving Lee alone with the fawn.
It couldn't stand but in its eyes,
he said, he saw the peace of all
pardoned things. "He was so beautiful,
Austin. His eyelashes were this long."
My friend has big hands, he plays bass.
He spread his thumb and index finger
wide apart. I nodded and said I could
just see them. We shook our heads
and drank to beauty so beyond us.
I wanted that to be the end of the story,
Lee sitting there in the road, holding
the fawn in his lap. It got quiet
in the bar. The story had to go on.
"I couldn't shoot him," he said.
"He was too beautiful to shoot.
I picked him up and carried him
down to the pond." "And then?"
"And then we walked into the water."