Blood Moon

The last slow switchback
curling back toward home.
A quick bounce of slanted lights.
The fawn lying in her driveway.

                       Tires grab gravel.
                       Quick stop.
                       Dust drifts in the beams
                       like smoke.
It looks dead.
Rusty red from the cab.
Venus burns a hole
in a shrouded sky.
                             Door creaks and slams.
                             A hand on fur.
                             Still warm.
                             Mountain lion.
More tan than red
when kneeling close.
Round nubs on the skull.
Button buck.
Would have been a beautiful boy.

Engine sounds.
Owl songs.
Hair crawls.
                                    Is the cat still there?
She grabs two legs.
Drags him to the trees.
Tiny hooves shine
black like wet stones.
The doe,
                              a still, staring eye reflecting
green in the headlights.
                              Just behind
the Ponderosa pine.