I Said It Could Have Been

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.

Structure

18 lines · 6 stanzas