POETRY: Deer Crossing the Sea by Larissa Szporluk

Many things were like sleep,
wholly in the power of the forest,
the deep middle, deep shiver, deep shade,
from which many things ran, unawake,
in search of new mountains to graze,
covered in flowers, my love, I am sick,
or covered in snow, pink with algae,
in search of impossible light
made of water, whose sapphire waves
swathed their heads, you were only a dream,
as they swam out to meet it, kicking their hooves,
no longer breathing, because no one
or nothing can quit once the body gets wind
of an eden—the promise of nectar
haunts them forever, the shore pecked out
of their eyes, and there, in its stead,
something greater to catch,
a scent that would paralyze God.Save