Smithereens Press Chapbooks Taking the Oath by Tom French | Page 15

Hare

He was coming like an express
at the head of a string of cars
moving like a fast cortège,
his puffs of breath in my dims,
going at a good clip
when he crossed the broken
line to duck into the gap
between my lights.
Casing gave. The radiator
slowed him, but it took the bulk
of the engine block
to stop him in his tracks.
By our outside light
I lifted him free, in a slow
reversal of that impact bone in the steel, steel
in the bone - a fine buck,
strength in the haunches yet and bore him across our road
for the birds, supporting,
like a midwife, the head, the neck.

9