Whitetails

Three does, at the corner
where the arclit
hexagon had stopped them
far beyond their tracks
to puzzle some meaning
from the hieroglyphs,
watch me scrape along
the pavement with my face
turned toward the moon.

So still are they,
hidden in the brilliant
copper camouflage
of municipal light, so
acutely do they mime
the transparency
of the air surrounding them
that I only see them as
I step off the curb.

I freeze, but before I can ask
what they could possibly want
from our metallic streets,
our steel trees that sing
with the rain, commanding
YIELD, or CAUTION, or STOP,
there is suddenly just a riffle
of hooves on warm asphalt
fading into the air.