The Salt Lick

I found this jawbone relic of a deer.

The brook beside it gargled in the strait,

a narrow rapids, something of a ford.

White foam and algae lathered where the hinge

once bit for apples, licked for salt.

An arrow in its side, perhaps a bullet,

this is where it fell. The hunter

never followed in its tracks. And here

it settled into hard, cold sleep

having lost the will to stumble farther on.

One night I dug its body to restore it:

set the hazel jelly of its gaze,

refilled the silken pouches of its lungs

and stretched new hide. It wakened into air!

I watched it loping to its thicket lair.