Edges

Missy-Marie Montgomery

The deer stepped out in front of my car
so politely, as if to say is this a good time?
And it happened that it was,
perfectly timed between cars and patches of ice.
I braked. She stepped gracefully across
into the berm of snow
and was gone.
I stayed at the side of the road
looking into the field for a while,
admiring the way she separated time,
the deft edge she stepped over.
There was a time when I would close myself
in the bathroom with the fan on, humming,
and lay my head against the cold porcelain tub
until a familiar landscape opened up again
so I could enter:
first a faint horizon light,
and then something like clouds pulling a sled
for me to ride on.
Sometimes someone would come in,
remove me from the water gone cold,
and lay me down with a blanket.
I would struggle to make my way back
to the body,
which, I now notice,
had always been holding my place for me.