The deer, lost

The precise round hole
in the headlight:

a moment’s work
of the small, sharp hoof,

as though an artist
had carved it out,

dropping a moon of glass
to the pavement.

The deer lost in the grass,
my father shatters:

a man wearied
by man’s violence,

the cruelty of fathers,
an animal helplessness.

Unfathered, undaughtered,
my shoulder bone

of his bones becomes
a nest for his weeping.