Deer Comes to Eat Berries, After Months of Bark

For months
she slept in the snow, 
mute, half buried 
among the alder. 
Her breath drew slowly. 
Sap hardened, the night churned. 

She will emerge, a brown rubble
of angles, weak and hungry,
her ghost slung limp in leaf thrush.

A portion of this beauty is disbelief.
The world turns unevenly,
and so, the heart.