Each deer
is a kōan—
a half-hidden
untruth truth,
a gentle,
empty expression
of wisdom
on their face:
the silence
just before
a thought
or just after.
Each deer
is an enigma,
their blank
faces housing
a delicate
ambiguity
of helplessness,
this delicacy
we use.
We use
the weak
for everything
but their wisdom.
We find the
smallest place
that we
can fit them
and then fit
them in.
We find them
irreparably dull.
We’ve made
them into
ourselves.
Hannah Rodabaugh holds an MA from Miami University and an MFA from Naropa University. She is the author of three chapbooks, including We Don't Bury Our Dead When Our Dead Are Animals, a collection of ecological elegies. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Indianapolis Review, Camas Magazine, Glassworks Magazine, Blueline Magazine, Berkeley Poetry Review, Horse Less Review, and many others. She has received grants from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the Alexa Rose Foundation and has been an Artist-in-Residence for the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and Surel’s Place. She is an English instructor at Boise State University and a teaching writer at The Cabin.
