you were following your steps
across the driveway, head bent
in the dusk toward one worry,
then another, and the day’s last chore
in the plastic bag in your hand.

It wasn’t a sound or a touch,
but something like the presence
of a memory that made you stop
and look up to find yourself
nearly surrounded by the dim
outlines of eight or ten deer.

And here you are, still, as if you’ve
stepped through the charcoaled
air into a scene on a cave wall
(the thin legs) where someone
long ago (the lifted, expectant head
and tense breath) tried to bring you to life.