________________________________________________
The Deer
Walking alone in a forest, I came upon
a deer—this was not a vision.
It faced me, on its four thin legs,
unmoved as a cave painting
brushed by light. I made myself still.
I spoke to it, softly. I can’t remember
what I said. The deer regarded me as a god would,
eased by my astonishment.
Then, slowly, I moved closer, and the deer
did not run. By now, you know it was love
I walked toward, not the deer, but
what hung in the space between us. I know
it was love because, as I held
my breath, the deer took
a few steps toward me before
bounding into the camouflage
of branches and leaves.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude (Milkweed Editions, 2022), finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry and the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Blood of the Air (Northwestern University Press, 2020), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. She has been awarded support from Bogliasco, Cave Canem, Robert Rauschenberg, and Saltonstall foundations as well as from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Hedgebrook, Yaddo, Hawthornden, MacDowell, and the Amy Clampitt Residency. Her poems have twice appeared in the Best American Poetry series. Among other honors, Codjoe has received fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the New York State Council/New York Foundation of the Arts, and the Jerome Foundation. Codjoe is the 2023 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. She is the winner of a 2023 Whiting Award. [Author photo by Jamie Harmon. “The Deer” first appeared in the New York Review of Books.]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Neolithic cave painting in Spain’s Penáguila region.
Go to Source
Author: Terence Winch
