Laura Lampton Scott

The deer in my town are lousy with mange. They limp, hit by cars. Hungry, they leap fences to eat our apples, herd down alleys. Frighten dogs. They stand frozen in streets, trapped in headlights like similes. Their fawns sleep on our brown, dead lawns. They do not belong here. No, we do not belong here, our drive-ins and mountain trails and box stores and bridges grafted onto their land, ill-fitting, a design we may come to regret, our part in the paving and grassing of this town. We can’t go back. Each of those windshields and bumpers collapsed in collisions with their now-dead or half-alive carcasses, and we are sure we could have made better choices.

What else is there to do tonight in this small town? Let’s wait in the line for ice cream. Walking there, on the sidewalk, I meet the deep-black eye of a deer, both of us startled, and expect it to rise on hooves and trample me. Instead I bow, as if deference will return the beavers who have left the rivers, even if we have failed to remember them.