Fawn
Susannah Nevison
Caught beneath a car but found alive,
the fawn screams but doesn鈥檛 kick,
and it鈥檚 too late. Her spine is crushed.
I try to hold her still. I didn鈥檛 know
how bright her spots would be,
her dappled coat, my shaking hand
across her flank as if to wipe her clean.
Her eyes so wide, so close to mine,
I see my entire face inside.
It鈥檚 years before a boy will throw me
to the ground, and years before I鈥檒l dream
his face, so close to mine, and scream
myself awake. I鈥檓 still a girl. I still believe
in wild things, that the startled animal
in my chest is not the fawn I carry in a bag,
wrapped and tied, like a gift, or grief.
is the聽author of In the Field Between Us (forthcoming from Persea Books, 2020, written with Molly McCully Brown); Lethal Theater (Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, forthcoming from Ohio State University Press in 2019); and Teratology, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry. Her poems and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse,听The National Poetry Review, 32 Poems, Pleiades, The Missouri Review, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Nevison is currently a visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing at Sweet Briar College.