If you were here with me
watching the falling snow landing
on evergreen branches
I would show you the footprints of the doe
how every day she follows the same course
from one side of the woods
to the other
past my front door and kitchen window
where she and I have surprised each other.
She has regarded me as she might
any cloud or bird
and I have watched for
but never found
the slightest concern of misplaced trust
before moving on towards the treehouse
where not long ago, ambling children
marveled at the view of distant
New Hampshire mountains.
Back then, the doe walked with two others
as a family.
Her buck was taken by my neighbor
her fawn, by a truck on the dirt road.
Now her tail twitches as she disappears
further into the birches
alone in winter.
–
Angelina-Maria Montejo is a writer originally from New York City. She was an Artist in Residence at the Truro Center for the Arts at Edgewood Farm in 2022. Her poem “Early Mornings in Oradour” won the regional first prize for the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, 2017. She lives in Massachusetts.