Deertime

skull by Monte Merrick

watching the old deer’s
skull dissolve back
into the forest,
look how much longer
a thought may linger –
how much longer
than i thought.

and this flying insect at rest
looks like a small bit
of leaf or bark –
on long legs –
runs errands in
a square foot of forest floor –
stops at the
alder leaf, the salmon berry
twig, a small piece of moss,
this old thinking skull,
and her vertebrae
in orbit.