Driving home we see a deer strayed up
from the park.

Slender, shimmering in our headlights,
he stands watch on the street,
antlers tilted.

At dusk, our two worlds coincide
as though a wormhole opens
to another realm,

as though the deer exists for this
moment only,

as though his universe dissolves
when the sun comes up.

My road, he seems to say, but you
can be here,

and then he turns and leaps back
to the trees.

We drive on, somehow comforted
by this brief convergence
of two worlds.


© by Sally Zakariya.
Used here with the author's permission.