"The Deer" by Arlene Naganawa

1

climbs the bluff to the oceanside cemetery—

patches of pink plastic geraniums and plaster angels

baseball caps, rosaries in fenced grave houses—

where she lies down housed in the stubbly grass,

heft of her mother-ness between plots,

scruff windblown Pacific a little rabbit skull

American flag and the shuffle of leaves

the blood fills the hot sides of her body

as she rises over dandelions

2

walking on the grass near the Stations of the Cross

outside my classroom window doe and a fawn in the shadow

of concrete walls then into the slim strip called greenbelt

that borders the subdivision

3

harebell, red columbine, cobweb thistle

fireweed and foxglove, avalanche lily

they see leaves we see guns

they lie down in green pastures

4

on the road into the prison

inside the locked gates

deer slip through

a holy green

Arlene Naganawa's works include I Weave a Nest of Foil (Kelson Books), We Were Talking About When We Had Bodies (Ravenna Press), The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks) and Private Graveyard (Gribble Press). Her work appears in Thimble, West Trestle Review, Whale Road Review, Mom Egg Review, Waxwing, The Inflectionist Review, La Piccioletta Barca and other journal.