deer

we drove up the early dawn
from the winding past unknown
to each in the other’s thoughts

winter chill frosted on the windshield
blurring the darkness from without
stirring the darkness from within
reflecting this moment from the previous
the unreal edges of our past meld into the future

in the vortex of this troubled persistence
we were distracted by a slight flicker of light
movement beyond the darkness breaking into
a herd of animals wandering into our sights

we could not ascertain their identities
in our minds those four-legged figures
morphed from ferocious wolves in my mind
to the tamed and timid deer in your eyes

and when i claimed them to be wolves
your deer were transformed into those
ferociousness from my mind which was
beginning to believe what you had saw

it wasn’t until the first of many hooves
illuminated by the moon that had crept
out from the clouds that had us believe
that these animals were deer
that our fears were redundant

in this relieved silence i held
your hands and those uncertainties
faded away, like those deer that
intruded, into the distance
into the future uncertain distance