By William E. Stafford
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
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Paul hit a deer (and probably killed it, though they didn't stay to wait for the police) while driving on a dark, windy road after picking Adam up from a cross country team spaghetti dinner. They are both very distressed about it, which means in Guy terms that they are not talking about it -- Adam accused me of nagging when I asked whether he was all right and Paul went out to check the car bumper to distract himself from being upset. I am sad about it but I wasn't there so it isn't as visceral for me.
The good news is that I now have two antibiotics -- one for my eye, the other for my eyelid, which I could tell my ophthalmologist did not find attractive because he told me I looked terrible, heh. (I did not take it personally, considering that on Sunday I not only had a big hideous welt on my eyelid but also looked like someone had punched me in the face.) I have to go back in a month after two weeks of eye drops and antibiotic cream on the eyelid. I really feel like I am getting a cold and am hoping it's just my body fighting off the infection and not that I have some other bug, because urgh.
My day was otherwise uneventful; I did some reading, took a nap, had leftover chick pea stew for dinner, watched the second episode of Terra Nova which wasn't bad but wasn't particularly good, then watched the season finale of Warehouse 13 which wasn't its best episode of the season and left a ridiculous number of things hanging (I would be upset about the recurring character body count except that I'm not at all convinced anyone is going to stay dead) but had loads of lovely Helena/Mika moments and Kate Mulgrew didn't distract me from Pete, so it's all good. I just hope those recurring guest characters are back next season; I suspect that the other show on which one of them appears may not be around as long as Warehouse 13 has.
Have a chipmunk. Because chipmunks are adorable.
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