When we were younger, we leveled
footprints in the woods—off
the path, of course, down deep
where the sun could barely
find us, where we blended
with the trees and hid behind
the shrubbery. I found a deer,
small, its eyes glazed and wide, still hiding
from the storm the night before.
Left berries. Made scarce. We could barely
make our way back up that track,
so steep, the rock, the roots.
We made it. We told no one. We
did not say why. We did not
say why.