Prey

Beneath the gathering layers of gauze:

the plucked fields,

the brown thatch on the forest floor,

the million thin hands of the bushes-

all laid back for recovery

before the earth is dragged again into blossom.

A woman is watching the snow.

She has the quiet beauty of the selfish,

light that seems so strong because withheld.

She stands close to the window,

the news of the child just now upon her.

Already she cannot recall her former life.

She notices how the afternoon

discolors the waxy leaves of her begonia.

She puts her face against the window,

as though listening,

and looks beyond that cold bed

to the deer huddled in the bog,

and the dogpack sniffing for deer.