WHEN WE WERE PREY TO NOTHING
BY ANGELA VORAS-HILLS
The doe hides her fawn in sedge
and disappears in the corn.
Some days
it’s clear enough for love
to depend on the periphery.
I sit in a willow between the field
and marsh, doubt the red currant
and cattails, the farmer’s
rusted pickup and morgue
of tires. All of it a milkdream
of a baby hidden in a car seat
of a Corolla left in the parking lot
of Tan World, waiting
for her mother…
I’d be lying if I said
I didn’t want to build
a nest in these branches
to hide you.
But when we were prey to nothing,
we left fields and orchards untended—
they withered as we slept
in full sun. And so it is:
you’ll grow into your skin
through the flesh of fruit
picked and eaten from every tree.
