When the deer pops out, Henry steps on the brake knowing this downhill stretch of road is covered with ice, and nothing he can do is going to save the animal, and here is Henry who is rushing to his son’s apartment because he heard the kid was going to sign up for the Navy to fight for God and George Bush by lobbing shells on people in Iraq, and here is Henry screaming his horn, his car shifting sideways, and here is Henry flashing back to his father’s suicide after the war, the sound of the pistol always there somewhere in the backrooms of his mind, and here is Henry watching the deer that has started to prance away, and here is Henry spinning so he is sliding backward for a moment, and here is Henry understanding that he would never have been able to stop his son, and here is Henry who believes in God, but doesn’t like him much praying to his pop instead asking him to save the deer and then shifting it to Henry and shifting it again to both, and here is Henry sliding into the ditch and finally stopping and wondering if he hit the deer or not. He did not hear an impact, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. He takes a moment to stare out at the street making sure not to look the way of the creature.
John Brantingham is the recipient of a New York State Arts Council grant and was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. Check out his work at johnbrantingham.com.
Euphony Journal 