oniijaaniwag
Every Sunday I walk out and see:
Rusted fences knocked aside.
Bush beans picked clean.
Tomatoes vanished.
Squash and watermelons trampled.
Okra ripped up.
I swear to no one and mutter about my garden.
I know who they are
and that they come at dawn and dusk.
I could follow them up the hill and into the woods,
but I usually don’t.
I know better than to follow the silent, hungry, sad ones.
So a Sunday will pass,
and more corn will bud silky tassels.
Then another Sunday, and they’ll come again.
Sunrise thieves ripping up plants,
and then tripping into the silvery web of trees, roots, and shadow.
When I walk through the woods, trying to think of nothing,
I sometimes see them.
Their heads, bowed into grasses or streams, crank up when they hear
my foot twist noisily in leaves.
They stare at me, always, for
one, two, three, four beats.
And those moments are, always,
familiar, haunted, and dangerous.
As if we both know something the other doesn’t.
And then, when we have watched each other and worried
(about whether the other one will end up gutted on the side of the road),
they bound away and crash into dead branches and well-worn runs.
Deer Women warning me of the dangers
of a life among men.
(First published in Yellow Medicine Review, Spring 2020 Collection.)
miskobagizi 