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Richard Widerkehr
Deer in Fog at Twilight
Near Squalicum Lake Road
Snow flurries more sparse—my sister no longer
sleeps with the moon in her cardboard box.
As if to measure me, this brown-tailed deer
has paused in a grove of alders.
She flexes her haunches, ears flicking.
I have nothing to say to the dark, except
why question what light we’re given—
the doe quiet as water.
About the writer:
Richard Widerkehr’s work has appeared in OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L), Rattle, Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and many others. He earned his M.A. at Columbia University and won two Hopwood first prizes for poetry at the University of Michigan. His third book of poems, At the Grace Cafe, has recently been published by Main Street Rag Press. He reads poems for Shark Reef Review. The poem above is contained in Widerkehr’s pamphlet of the same title, now in release from Buttonhook Press.
Image: Deer in the Forest (II) by Franz Marc (1880-1916). Oil on canvas. 43.5 x 39.3 inches. 1914. Public domain.
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