Late Arrival
Mickie Kennedy
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2025 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Margaret Reid, Traditional Verse
We stand naked by the window. Long
shadows. The sputter of hooves across
the porch. A doe and newborn fawn
lick salt from the overnight frost,
scraping clean the wooden slats.
I tuck my chin into his shoulder. The wreck
of myself, cancer-rich, pressing against his back.
The doe shivers. The fawn snaps its neck
upright, staring through the single pane of glass.
Beautiful, he says, and it is. I kiss
his cheek, hiding what I know from him:
in April, if I walked the woods
for downed elms or signs of bear, I would
see that fawn again—a scatter of bones.
