I Said It Could Have Been

Michael Burns

the long-departed soul
of my dead father
who had come to me for bearings;

my dream
near morning, fleeing
as I woke;

a woman I should have known
in another life for whom
I was more than and never enough;

my imagination;
but our eyes met, calm
yet watchful and amazed,

the deer to find herself
there in the middle of my backyard
and me at the kitchen window,

and I swear some part of me
left with her, having
seen enough, clearing the fence.