Ecstasy Facsimile

I see deer loping toward the apple trees by the driveway.
Long necks unguarded, with their antlers they knock
fruits off branches, yellow-red orbs tumbling to the ground.
Like dogs they wag their short tails as they eat, bodies
camouflaged by fading light, gravel crunching under hooves,
grass still green, leaves a lazy shade of sun. Late September,

what I know of where I am I borrow from friends’ stories.
Days into a new life, I shuffle between hand-me-down nostalgia
and wonder, so much of what I do here dissipates into fear.
The cold has begun to perch on my bones, build its nest there.
I close the screen door quietly, walk slowly to the bin with a bag
of other people’s food scraps. The deer stare, almost startled,

time attends to us in different ways. Of course, I know I’m kind
because I am weak. Not for me they run back into the forest.