"Wings and Light" by Brian Michael Barbeito

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Doe During Hunting Season


You used to dance after harvest
with cold November clinging
your white singlet. Stockinged legs
dogwood branches in the morning, dancing
flats rooting through topsoil
half frozen.

How you could have ever wanted to stay.

Stag leaps left. You breathless,
steaming, soaked cloth dripping
off your body. You'd sling
the shoes, salt over left shoulder,
barefoot in the furrows trudging
back home.

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BENJAMIN WALLS is a father to six cats. He holds a BA in English from a tiny southern college you've never heard of. Ben currently attends a community college where he hopes to earn a certificate in surgical technology, which will allow him to assist surgeons during operations. His work has appeared in Pankhearst, Melancholy Hyperbole, and previously at Up the Staircase Quarterly.

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BRIAN MICHAEL BARBEITO is a resident of Ontario, Canada. He is a writer and landscape photographer. Current work appears at Fiction International and The Tishman Review. Brian is the author of Chalk Lines (Fowlpox Press, 2013).