Stasis

I lie awake, thinking of viscosity—blood, fluidity, a rush
pulsing through my arteries, away from my heart, imagining

its sound, the metallic taste on my tongue. Disorder. When I split
my lip, I bit hard, unaware my blood was pushing me towards 

the pain that pounds through my body. Never giving it a thought 
until the blood delivers difficult news. A message over voicemail. 

It’s cancer. The other day, a fawn lay dead on the side of the road. 
Its body seeping—already brown. It was red only hours ago.

How fast everything shifts. What’s living is forever an inch away
from dying. But now, I’m picturing the doe looking for her fawn, 

ears perked in case it appears. She’ll wait until she knows and 
I wonder if she knew all along but couldn’t. Its snowy spots

look soft, quiet from where I stand. The workers drag its body 
over to the edge of the road, before scooping it into their van, 

as if it hadn’t ever been alive.  Years ago, a white-tailed deer
antlers first, rushed my car. I veered off the road. The animal 

pushed through my window and vanished into the brush. Hair, 
blood, glass spread across the car, my windshield shattered. 

The officers couldn’t find the frantic deer or how it was able to 
escape with its injuries. I wonder, if they’d heard the oncologist’s 

voicemail, would they have treated me, tended to my injuries, 
picked the shards of glass from my skin, staunched the bleeding.

LINDA LADERMAN

Linda Laderman’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including SWWIM, ONE ART, Thimble, Action-Spectacle, Scapegoat Review, Rust & Moth, and MER. She is a recipient of Harbor Review’s Jewish Women’s Prize and was a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her micro-chapbook, What I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know, is online at harbor-review.com.