when Chen Chen tweets about deer in a poem

It’s #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day‘s archives!

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I think
I can’t see a deer
on a page
without bracing for impact
the word evokes
not one car crash
but two antlers
shattering windshields
in stricken moments
replicated later in a set
of vanishing headlights

one summer morning
a dear friend and I gasped
snippets of conversation
and gossip pushing our tempo
quick turnover on a shaded path
clouds of mosquitos
blocked the sun
when we startled a doe

her eyes reminded me
of the color of a totaled sedan
of the terror of waking
as glass breaks and soars
of the way winds lift
off a river the way
darknesses intertwine
creating a fragile anchor
to tether a vessel between worlds sleep.

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Originally from Oklahoma, Ray Ball currently lives on the land of the Dena’ina, where she works as the Vice Provost for Student Success and the Dean of the Honors College at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She is the author of two history books and three books of poetry. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Free State Review, Glass, and Sierra Nevada Review. Ray has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and been a Best of the Net finalist.