During the minutes when a truck
sprays frost off the small plane’s wings,
two deer graze beyond the tarmac barrier,
their limbs flexible, their rib cages pumping air.
The buck’s head is adorned with a forest
that renews itself each year.
We came down from the mountain
for a ramble, the doe announces,
wearing an ice frock, sniffing his coarse hair,
the bottoms of their hooves listening to the frozen landscape.
She seems to be only partially certain
he cares for her as she cares for him.
Turning their elegance toward the runway,
they face me as I face them,
then the plane taxis onward and mounts gray
bulbous clouds in a slow dissolve.
Opening a newspaper, I can feel the altitude
against my face, but something deeper:
What was that back there? Time is short.
If tenderness approaches, run to it.