This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 13, 2012 - For the doe in this poem, hunting season ended well before middle age. Who is predator and who prey -- or are we be both at the same time?
Drucilla Wall
Deer Woman at Fifty
One misty night on the road
to Wentzville, a doe cut across
the headlights and vanished
kicking gravel chips
from the edge of the woods,
her provoking rump
giving the last flash.
I used to be that woman,
luring men to their deaths,
or so they liked to think,
when each carried his death
like a second heart
already within him.
Drucilla Wall teaches poetry and essay writing, as well as native American literature, at University Missouri St. Louis. She has earned numerous awards and fellowships for her work, including the Mari Sandoz Prairie Schooner Short Story Award, the Western Literature Association Willa Pilla Prize for Humor in Writing, and the University of Nebraska Fling and Larson Fellowships. "Deer Woman at Fifty" comes from her first poetry collection, "The Geese at the Gates" (Salmon Poetry, 2011).
Other "Free Verse" poets: Michael Meyerhofer, Travis Mossotti, Allison Joseph, Stacy Lynn Brown, Adrian Matejka , David Clewell, Catherine Rankovic, Andy Cox, Rodney Jones, Sara Burge, Melody Gee, Christopher Todd Anderson, Andrew Hudgins, Richard Cecil
To learn more about River Styx, click here. Richard Newman, River Styx editor for 15 years, is the author of two full-length poetry collections, "Borrowed Towns" and "Domestic Fugues." He also co-directs the River Styx at Duff's reading series.
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