I had never seen one away
from a slow, gray funeral train
until an evening on 68, driving east
away from Ohio.

Passing, it was strange
and moving faster than it should be,
an anomaly, a long, black heavy animal
somehow free from its cage
and running away through Maryland.

as it left me in falling evening
I knew

the small inches from my skin
to the hard, sharp road
and the thrust of my soft torso
in metal against the wind.

when the doe stretched
swift and panicked across the white lines
I thought of the long, black car

and felt the distance to Virginia
and the weight of memory pieces
all breathing, full and broken
clinging to my bumper and
sparking in the night

and the speed—
I endured the speed.