White-tailed Deer
I’m sorry to say
the way I know you
best is strung-up
by your hind legs,
the cavity of your body
on display, headless,
skin flayed and peeled
to be cured and stretched
over a wooden stool later.
I’m sorry, your meat
was delicious as a pot
roast, your youth and lack
of fear at death made
the gravy, the potatoes
tender. If you didn’t know
better, you might not tell
the flesh in your teeth
was once wild
And no, I was never the one
with the bow, with the camouflaged
rifle and orange vest. I only ever
perched in boxes nailed to trees
as adventure in imagination, as
play at being higher than my
surroundings. I only ever saw
the way men in my family
treated you through pictures,
only ever pet your neck
as it hung on the wall.
White-tailed Deer, Odocoileus virginianus
This excerpt was originally published in Light Enters the Grove: Exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park through Poetry, edited by Charles Malone, Carrie George, and Jason Harris (Kent State University Press, 2024). It is reprinted with permission of the press.
A literary hike through Ohio’s oldest national park. An anthology celebrating the biodiversity and staggering beauty of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Light Enters the Grove collects 80 poems, each of which reflects its author’s unique connection to a living organism found within the park—ranging from white-tailed deer to brown bats and from Japanese honeysuckle to bloodroot. Additionally, each poem is paired with an artistic depiction of the poem’s subject that reinforces the rich relationship between artists and the natural world.
Benjamin Anthony Rhodes is a queer and trans poet living in northeast Ohio. He’s earned an MFA in creative writing from Kent State University and a BA in English from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Benjamin carries on his mother’s legacy by teaching reading and writing to students of all ages. His work can be found in Cleveland Review of Books, Cowboy Jamboree, Surging Tide, Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere.
Header image, White-Tailed Deer, by Each+Every, courtesy Kent State University Press.
