a yellow orb shifts against the shock of dark vertical bark, her back 

split diagonal, flayed & a bright fleshy 

suspension in the copse of trees, her hooves scrape packed dirt, legs 

sway like she’s dancing on hindquarters & I could 

take her body inside me, like the medicine I need, or wrap her 

skinned hide, congealed blood flaking, a cloak against the coming

night & I’d wear her ears, pin her white-warning-tail to my backside 

as regalia for all the deer-dead, but the painting only approaches 

her in 2-d—a portal of slim brushstrokes, paint upon paint, so I step

into the field, from the left, outside the frame, push through tall

burnished grasses, bending slightly, my feet crush crickets, trample 

late blooming goldenrod & I let the heat of the day leak out 

of the air like a balloon popped & swirling, so I can become Field. Dress. Portal. 

What’s the worst possible thing to ask of yourself? Maybe believing 

in whatever makes demands on your own inner life, like how love 

is supposed to save even the most hardened ones. Only this dead doe’s 

head bows & whistles to the others, come find me—quick, like light,

or like all the seedpods’ sudden dispersal, their unrealized progeny float 

away without a care for the end result.